Many years ago the NCC Microsystems Centre had a small contract to deliver a series of Saturday Morning sessions for Judges so that when they asked Counsel "And what is this think you call a micro-computer" they would be able to tease out what the Jury needed to know that was relevant to the case. Today a Judge might similarly ask "What is Artificial Intelligence" in order to tease out whether the system in question was a simple rules based engine or a complex hierarchy of linear regressions and the provenance of the data that fed it … and thus who might reasonably be assumed responsible for which aspects of what it was doing. And if he got a mass of technobabble he would know that Counsel (or the witness) did not know what they were talking abut or was bullshitting. Those who delivered the lectures never discussed the experience … save to say that the audience was very polite but also very perceptive in the questions they asked and how they checked the answers they were given. They also helped me set up the original BCS Expert Witness Panel.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
