Technological innovations must make justice faster and not less fair, Chief Justice of India Surya Kant said on Sunday while asking law schools to train students to meet the challenges posed by artificial intelligence.

Speaking at the second edition of the Vice Chancellors’ Conclave organised by National Law University, Jodhpur, on the theme ‘Legal technology and its roadmap: Positioning law as a leader in legal technology’, the CJI said whatever path a student chooses after graduating in law, “they must be able to understand technology not as something external to legal reasoning, but as a part of the changing world in which they will work”.

He added that “the responsibility of our law schools therefore is not simply to familiarise students with new tools, but to equip them with the judgement, adaptability and ethical grounding needed to use those tools responsibly in whichever sphere they enter”.

“Ultimately, whether this technological future serves justice or subverts it, will depend substantially on the habits we instil in our students today,” he said.

CJI Kant pointed out that there is “a defensive instinct to keep technology, particularly the newer generative tools, out of the classroom altogether” due to anxieties about the risks around it.

He, however, added that prohibition was not the answer to that risk and changes of this nature do not wait for institutional comfort. “It is inevitable, and an institution that resists the inevitable does not stop it; it only forfeits its own role in shaping it. The better approach is to bring these tools into the classroom in a transparent, supervised manner, so that students learn not only how to use them, but also to use them appropriately and ethically. The questions of artificial intelligence and academic integrity are therefore among the most important questions legal education must confront today…,” the CJI said.

The CJI stressed that “it is not enough for legal education merely to adapt to technology because adaptation, by its very nature, means responding to change after it has occurred. If law is truly to lead in this space…we must aspire to something more — to foresee change, shape its direction, and ensure that technology develops in service of the law and the values it seeks to uphold”.