Incident 180: Algorithm Used by the Malaysian Judiciary Reportedly Recommended Unusually High Sentencing to a Drug Possession Case

Description: The AI system used by the Malaysian judiciary which explicitly considered age, employment, and socio-economic data provided sentencing to a drug possession case that was alleged by lawyer to be disproportionately high for the crime committed.

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Alleged: Sarawak Information Systems developed an AI system deployed by Malaysian judiciary and Malaysian courts, which harmed Malaysian convicted people.

Incident Stats

Incident ID
180
Report Count
3
Incident Date
2020-02-19
Editors
Sean McGregor, Khoa Lam
Applied Taxonomies
GMF, MIT

MIT Taxonomy Classifications

Machine-Classified
Taxonomy Details

Risk Subdomain

5.2. Loss of human agency and autonomy

Risk Domain

  1. Human-Computer Interaction

Entity

Human

Timing

Post-deployment

Intent

Intentional

In a local first, Sabah court gives out sentence assisted by AI
malaymail.com · 2020

KOTA KINABALU, Feb 19 — The Malaysian judiciary passed sentences for the first time today using artificial intelligence (AI) technology in the Kota Kinabalu magistrate court.

Four cases, under Section 12 of the Dangerous Drug Act 1952 was h…

Malaysian judiciary makes history, uses AI in sentencing
nst.com.my · 2020

KOTA KINABALU: The Malaysian judiciary made history today by employing Artificial Intelligence (AI) in sentencing in two drug cases - but not without objection from the defence.

Counsel Hamid Ismail raised the objection before Magistrate Je…

As Malaysia tests AI court sentencing, lawyers fear for justice
news.trust.org · 2022

BANGKOK, April 12 (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Few cases ruffle Hamid Ismail after nearly two decades as a lawyer, but he was taken aback when a man he defended was sentenced with the help of an artificial intelligence tool in the Malaysi…

Variants

A "variant" is an incident that shares the same causative factors, produces similar harms, and involves the same intelligent systems as a known AI incident. Rather than index variants as entirely separate incidents, we list variations of incidents under the first similar incident submitted to the database. Unlike other submission types to the incident database, variants are not required to have reporting in evidence external to the Incident Database. Learn more from the research paper.
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