‘The drive for innovation, efficiency, and cost-effectiveness has seen governments increasingly turn to artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance their operations. The significant growth in the use of AI mechanisms in the areas of migration and border control makes the potential for its application to the process of refugee status determination (RSD), which is burdened by delay and heavy caseloads, a very real possibility. AI may have a role to play in supporting decision makers to assess the credibility of asylum seekers, as long as it is understood as a component of the humanitarian context. This article argues that AI will only benefit refugees if it does not replicate the problems of the current system. Credibility assessments, a central element of RSD, are flawed because the bipartite standard of a ‘well-founded fear of being persecuted’ involves consideration of a claimant’s subjective fearfulness and the objective validation of that fear. Subjective fear imposes an additional burden on the refugee, and the ‘objective’ language of credibility indicators does not prevent the challenges decision makers face in assessing the credibility of other humans when external, but largely unseen, factors such as memory, trauma, and bias, are present.’
Link: https://academic.oup.com/ijrl/article/34/3-4/373/6839163
AI Update 