Legal Decision-Making in Algorithmic Society: Observations on Techno-Animism and Communicactivation
摘要
Algorithms, especially at the stage of generative artificial intelligence algorithms, open possibilities for communication with human beings, as well as different ways of communication between human beings. In order to research how legal decision-making can coexist with algorithms, both in cases of automation (Robotic Process Automation) and Generative Artificial Intelligence Algorithms (GenAI), we collected data on the internet and visited law firms and courts at forums in Recife, Brazil, speaking to jurists who use GenAI in their legal practice. The data led us to observe futuristic thinking and acceleration as elements of algorithmic society. Where futuristic thinking is concerned, algorithms are considered entities with their own “soul”, leading us to techno-animism. Through acceleration, algorithms are endowed with the capacity to learn, and therefore to produce their own knowledge. To deal with this cognitive autonomy, which produces and reproduces information, we resort to finding meaning in communicactivation. These reflections are linked to the question of the autonomy of law to produce its own elements in algorithmic society, to observe the coexistence between algorithms and legal decision-making: the operation of legal learning today. So far, observations have shown that the presence of algorithms in legal decision-making has not altered legal rationality, although AI is enabling the production of new elements in the legal world. Thus, in our observations, techno-animism and elements of communicactivation present themselves as both fruitful and reflexive ways of revealing the coexistence between GenAI and legal decision-making.