Delhi High Court Rules Artificial Intelligence Cannot Replace Human Judgment in Adjudication

The Delhi High Court has ruled that Artificial Intelligence (AI) cannot replace human intelligence or the compassionate aspect in the process of adjudication. The court stated that ChatGPT cannot be used as a foundation for making legal or factual decisions in a court of law.

Judge Prathiba M Singh stated that the accuracy and reliability of information produced by artificial intelligence is still in a gray area and at best such a tool can be used for preliminary understanding or preliminary research.

The court’s findings came as it dealt with luxury brand Christian Louboutin’s lawsuit against a partnership involved in the manufacture and sale of shoes that allegedly infringed its trademark.

The plaintiff’s lawyer argued that “Red Sole Shoe” was its registered trademark in India and that ChatGPT was suing it in response to its “reputation”.

“The said tool (ChatGPT) cannot be the basis for resolving questions of law or fact in a court of law. The response of Large Language Model (LLM)-based chatbots such as ChatGPT on which a plaintiff’s attorney seeks to rely depends on a number of factors, including the nature of the query posed by the user and structure and training. Moreover, there are opportunities for wrong answers, imaginary jurisprudence, imaginary information, etc. generated by AI chatbots,” the court said in a recent order.

“The accuracy and reliability of information produced by artificial intelligence is still in a gray area. In the court’s opinion, there is no doubt that at the current stage of technological development, artificial intelligence cannot replace human intelligence or the human part in the sentencing process. At best, the tool could be used for preliminary understanding or preliminary research and nothing more,” the court noted.

Based on a comparative analysis of the two parties’ products, the court ultimately determined that the defendant had a “clear intent to imitate and profit financially from the reputation and goodwill of the plaintiff.”

“There is no doubt in this court that the defendant’s products are scraps or similar parts of the plaintiff’s distinctive shoes and footwear. The defendant has copied all the essential features of the plaintiff’s footwear, such as the ‘Red Sole’, the ‘Spiked Shoe Style’ and also the prints. The imitation does not not from one or two designs but from a large number of designs as shown in the above table,” the court said.

The defendant undertook not to copy or imitate any design of the plaintiff’s shoes and the court ordered that if this undertaking was breached, the defendant would be liable to pay ₹25 lakh as damages to the plaintiff.

Considering that the defendant also used pictures of well-known Bollywood celebrities on his Instagram account and also displayed/sold shoes in high-end malls, the defendant was ordered to pay ₹2000 as expenses. carrier.