Artificial Justice, a provocative look at how AI may impact our lives

On June 6 I attended a private screening of the Spanish-Portuguese co-production “Artificial Justice”, a political science-fiction thriller that I really enjoyed, directed by Simón Casal, and starring Verónica Echegui, Tamar Novas, Alba Galocha and Alberto Ammann.

The premise of the movie, which opens in Spain on September 13, is that at some point in the near future, a Spanish prime minister proposes a referendum on the use of an algorithm to replace judges, the aim being to clear the country’s huge backlog of court cases, while at the same time guaranteeing a more impartial and less politicized approach to dispensing justice

Set in my hometown of La Coruña, in northwestern Spain, which is captured beautifully by cinematographer Diego Cabezas, the film explores the pros and cons of using algorithms to administer justice, leaving viewers to make their own minds up by allowing the different parties involved: lawyers, academics, the company that has developed the algorithm, etc., to put their respective cases.

My only beef with the film is the use of self-driving vehicles as the arbiters of the life and death of their occupants (introducing the ethical discussion encapsulated in the trolley car dilemma), which is something that we will never see. That said, this is probably…