ChatSCOTUS: Using AI to Communicate U.S. Supreme Court Opinions to the Public

• In Event: Studying Judicial Legitimacy: Scandals, Communication, and Personal Impact

Abstract

The Supreme Court of the United States suffers from a crisis of public confidence. Part of this decline in diffuse and specific support for the institution may arise out of a belief that the justices arrive at their rulings for insincere or partisan motivations. Other constitutional courts, such as the UK Supreme Court, issue short, lay-friendly summaries of their judgments in order to communicate their reasoning to the public. Utilizing artificial intelligence (AI), I probe the plausibility of summarizing the U.S. Supreme Court’s opinions in short, comprehensible terms. I then the test the efficacy of these summaries using an original survey experiment to determine whether more efficacious and legible communication of the Court’s reasoning impacts approval of its judgments, or its legitimacy.

Author

• Matthew P. Hitt, Colorado State University