The CMI Charitable Trust and the yCMI Essay Prize

At its meeting in New York in 2016 the trustees of the CMI Charitable Trust agreed to fund the Young CMI Essay Prize. The Essay Prize has, since then, attracted a lot of interest, and some extremely interesting and thought-provoking essays have been submitted on such subjects as the Cyber risks involved in Unmanned shipping, to Cross Border Insolvency in Maritime Law, and many topics in between.

This year’s prize winning essay by Kevin Chan entitled “Charting a Course for A.I’s Brand of Justice in Maritime Disputes” considers whether maritime disputes might be arbitrated by AI systems such as ChatGPT. The essay is fascinating and considers 3 cases which the author submitted to ChatGPT for resolution by arbitration.

From this process it is clear that as an arbitrator, ChatGPT is capable of coming to a resolution speedily and efficiently (the average time for an award to be published from submission of the arguments was 30 seconds!) and is completely impartial. It also provides an inexpensive way of obtaining justice (ChatGPT does not charge an arbitrator’s fee). However, currently it is clear that ChatGPT does not have the “industry knowledge” or the legal resources to come to a reliable result. The author suggests that this may not be an unsurmountable problem, and that if Open AI feeds ChatGPT with data on industry practice and legal research resources it may be that the ability of ChatGPT to replace arbitrators is not all that far from being a reality. An interesting prospect! A copy of the essay can be found on the CMI website.

The prize for Kevin, as for all other Young CMI essay prize winners, is an expenses paid  trip to the next CMI Colloquium, and so we are very much looking forward to seeing Kevin in Gothenburg next May. It is not all good news for Kevin, however. He will be asked to make a short presentation of his essay before the CMI Assembly. That will be fascinating, and I for one much look forward to it.