Can a Robot Be an Arbitrator?

Abstract

The first article in the 2019 issue of Svensk Juristtidning is an article by the new professor of procedural law at Uppsala University, Professor Eric Bylander, entitled Den datoriserade domaren (Eng. ‘The Computerised Judge). Professor Bylander recounts a story of a Norwegian judge who received an email – not from a disgruntled litigant as she had first thought, but from a friend – with the ominous title Eders tid er snart forbi (Eng. ‘Your Time Is Soon Over’). The email turned out to contain an article about artificial intelligence (AI) and about how the so-called ‘machine learning’ is threatening to challenge human jobs in many different areas, even in the legal profession.
Can a robot replace a judge? Or more specifically for the purposes of this chapter, can a robot replace an arbitrator? 
Professor Bylander points out that a robot certainly can replace a judge. Sweden apparently had a form of justice once upon a time which involved the throwing of dice. If that was all that judges had to do, then robots could easily replace them.