The Kyiv Court of Appeals has partially granted a prosecutor’s request to impose a harsher sentence on a Kyiv resident who supported Russian aggression and insulted the Ukrainian language on social media. One of the reasons was the use of the ChatGPT chatbot in the court of first instance.
The Kyiv Court of Appeals has partially granted a prosecutor’s request to impose a harsher sentence on a Kyiv resident who supported Russian aggression and insulted the Ukrainian language on social media. One of the reasons was the use of the ChatGPT chatbot in the court of first instance.
This is stated in the resolution posted in the Unified State Register of Court Decisions.
According to it, in 2024, the Dniprovskyi District Court of Kyiv found a Ukrainian guilty of publishing pro-Russian materials on social networks, including Facebook and VK. He distributed posts and comments justifying Russian aggression, calling for a violent change of power, disrespecting Ukrainians, and calling against the statehood of Ukraine.
«Lord, will Kyiv be liberated from Ukrainian Nazis? We, the Russian people of Kyiv, are very much looking forward to the Russian liberating soldiers! The Ukronatsiki mock us in such a way that it is scary to say the least. They can simply kill us at any moment,» said such messages.
For such statements, the court of first instance sentenced him to five years in prison (with a restriction on holding public office for 2 years). The judge dismissed some of the charges and acquitted him on certain articles.
The prosecution appealed the verdict, demanding a harsher sentence (six years in prison) and a finding of guilt on several additional charges, including justification of war and genocide.
The Kyiv Court of Appeal considered the case and concluded that the first instance decision was made with numerous violations. The judges indicated that the first court did not properly assess all the evidence and did not verify some of the circumstances of the case, the motivation part of the verdict had general wording, and some conclusions were likely based on texts generated by ChatGPT.
«The panel of judges draws attention to the content of the verdict, which is burdened by arbitrary interpretation of general concepts, statements, and the presentation of theoretical aspects of law generated by the artificial intelligence „ChatGPT“, which calls into question the judicial discretion and judicial interpretation of individual issues, taking into account the essence of the accusation,» the ruling states.
The decision states that «the use of technology must, above all, respect the nature of the judicial process,» and «artificial intelligence can be a useful and supportive tool in the field of justice, but cannot replace the role of judges.»
Based on these findings, the Kyiv Court of Appeal overturned the verdict of the pro-Russian Kyiv resident and sent the case back to the court of first instance for a new trial.
Recall that earlier, a judge of the Appellate Chamber of the High Anti-Corruption Court returned the appeal of the plaintiff, who, on the advice of lawyers, filed it using the artificial intelligence chatbot ChatGPT. The court regarded this as a manifestation of «disrespect».
