GLESS, SABINA. Could robot judges believe? Epistemic ambitions of the criminal trial as we approach the digital age. A comment on Sarah Summers «Episte-mic ambitions of the criminal trial: truth, proof, and rights» [artículos de revistas]. 2023. Publicado en: Quaestio facti. Revista internacional sobre razonamiento probatorio, n.5 , 169-179

Criminal proof is unique, in that it must be able to account for the justification of both: accurate fact-finding and a fair trial. This is Sarah Summers’ main message in her article on the epistemic ambitions of the criminal trial, which focusses on belief as a sort of proxy for societal acceptance of truth as a set of facts established by compliance to procedural rules. This commentary tests her finding by scrutinizing whether it is conceivable that robots, complying to all rules, assist in fact-finding with a specific form of legal belief based on a sophisticated probability weighting opaque to humans. The result is in accordance with Sarah Summers: as long as robots cannot explain their beliefs, any criminal proof based on them flounders as it can neither be part of a fair trial nor ensure acceptance in the existing institutional framework.