Uniting Machine Intelligence, Brain and Behavioural Sciences to Assist Criminal Justice

I discuss here three important roles where machine intelligence, brain and behaviour studies together may facilitate criminal law. First, brain imaging analysis and predictive modelling using brain and behaviour data enable mental illness, insanity, and behaviour examination during legal investigations. Second, psychological, psychiatric, and behavioural studies supported by machine learning algorithms may help detect lies, biases, and visits to crime scenes. Third, brain decoding is beginning to uncover one's thoughts and intentions based on functional brain imaging data. Having dispensed with achievements and promises, I examine concerns regarding the accuracy, reliability, and explainability of the brain- and behaviour-based assessments in criminal law, as well as questions regarding data possession, security, privacy, and ethics. Taken together, brain and behaviour decoding in legal exploration and decision-making at present is promising but primitive. The derived evidence is limited and should not be used to generate definitive conclusions, although it can be potentially used in addition, or parallel, to existing evidence. Finally, I suggest that there needs to be (more precise) definitions and regulations regarding when and when not brain and behaviour data can be used in a predictive manner in legal cases.