Judges versus artificial intelligence in juror decision-making in criminal trials: Evidence from two pre-registered experiments.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Artificial intelligence (AI) is anticipated to play a significant role in criminal trials involving citizen jurors. Prior studies have suggested that AI is not widely preferred in ethical decision-making contexts, but little research has compared jurors' reliance on judgments by human judges versus AI in such settings.

Objectives

This study examined whether jurors are more likely to defer to judgments by human judges or AI, especially in cases involving mitigating circumstances in which human-like reasoning may be valued.

Methods

Two pre-registered online experiments were conducted with Japanese participants (Experiment 1: N = 1,735, Mage = 48.4; Experiment 2: N = 1,731, Mage = 48.5). Participants reviewed two murder trial vignettes and made sentencing deci

SUBMITTER: Watamura E 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11781698 | biostudies-literature | 2025

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature