Is Human Judgment Necessary?

This chapter explores the relationship between rapid developments in artificial intelligence (AI) and the exercise of human judgment. Human judgment is unavoidably exercised in designing AI systems, and yet some of the most consequential forms of judgment are submerged in the formal rigor of algorithmic syntax. Moreover, whether or not one can conclude that the machines running AI themselves “make” judgments in a deep sense, human judgment is increasingly displaced by AI as “smart” machines perform functions that previously required the exercise of human judgment. Even promising AI systems designed to enhance human judgment involve subtle forms of displacement. And AI systems being developed in areas such as the law have powerful effects on the epistemological terrain in which human judgment occurs. This chapter describes these effects and then offers ethical, political, and legal justifications for a doctrine of non-delegation to preserve the conditions of human judgment in appropriate domains of social and legal action.