China launches AI legal assistance, first judicial trial large language model

As artificial intelligence (AI) revolutionizes sectors worldwide, China is integrating AI into the legal field by launching an AI legal assistance service alongside its large language model (LLM) for judicial trials in Shenzhen City, southern China.

Developed in collaboration with the All-China Federation of Trade Unions, the AI legal assistant provides timely and cost-effective legal advice to workers facing labor disputes, effectively addressing previous challenges associated with high costs and lengthy consultations.

"Through such an assistant, users can independently engage in profound legal question and answer via their mobile phones, receiving expert answers. This approach significantly boosts the efficiency of legal assistance," said Xie Guangjun, involved in the AI assistant development, on the sidelines of the just-concluded 2024 World AI Conference in east China's financial hub of Shanghai.

Meanwhile, the newly launched LLM for judicial trials, which demonstrates its capability to assist throughout the legal process from case filing to settlement, is aiding judges in swiftly understanding complex case details.

"Especially with the integration of large language models and analyses grounded in common sense, it delivers meaningful and insightful analyses to judges. This facilitates judges to thoroughly and truthfully considering litigants' perspectives, enabling swift identification of the focus of disputes and rulings based on authoritative legal norms and precedents provided by the model. This substantially streamlines the complexity and time in handling cases, ensuring the integrity of our judicial rulings," said Chen Yunfeng, civil judge at the Shenzhen Intermediate Court.

The AI trial system systematically extracts and analyzes 212 critical data points from each case, significantly enhancing the precision of dispute prevention and resolution measures.

"Since the outset, we have advocated for judges' direct involvement in the research and development process. This empowers judges, as judicial officers, to grasp the challenges and nuances in our judicial work more clearly. The model and computational capabilities are adept at addressing these issues effectively," said Fu Luqi, financial court judge at the Shenzhen Intermediate Court.

During its trial phase, the AI trial system facilitated the filing of 291,000 cases and generated 11,600 initial document drafts. The official launch extends its application to more common civil and commercial cases, promising streamlined legal procedures and judicial fairness.

China launches AI legal assistance, first judicial trial large language model

Significant progress has been made in clearing the debts of financing platforms with the central bank support, said the governor of China's central bank Thursday.

At a press conference on the sidelines of the third session of the 14th National People's Congress, Pan Gongsheng, governor of the People's Bank of China (PBOC), said many efforts have been made in recent years to achieve the goal.

"Significant progress has been made in clearing the debts of financing platforms. Along with relevant departments and local governments, the PBOC has implemented several effective measures to mitigate the debt risks of local financing platforms," said Pan.

Pan noted that in 2023, the central bank established a standardized and systematic debt statistical monitoring framework for financing platforms. Local governments and financial institutions regularly submitted debt data in both directions, enabling cross-verification. Additionally, in collaboration with the Ministry of Finance, strict exit standards and procedures for financing platforms were put in place.

"Through efforts of multiple parties, the debt risk of financing platforms has substantially diminished. By the end of 2024, compared with the beginning of 2023, approximately 40 percent of local government financing platforms had shed the financing functions through market withdrawal and transformation. The scale of operating financial debt for financing platforms stood at 14.8 trillion yuan (about 2 trillion U.S. dollars), marking a decrease of about 25 percent from the beginning of 2023," the governor said.

Among the operational financial debts, about three-fourths are concentrated in major economically developed provinces in the eastern and central part of China, and these provinces have strong debt-dissolving ability, Pan said.

Significant progress made in clearing debts of financing platforms: PBOC governor