BAKU, Azerbaijan, October 27. A new artificial intelligence (AI) platform has been prepared in Azerbaijan to facilitate citizens' access to legal information and to provide answers to their questions regarding legislation, Chief Commercial Officer (CCO) of the Azerbaijan National AI Center, Ulfan Aliyev, said on Tuesday, Trend’s correspondent reports from the event.
He made the remark at a discussion titled "Intercultural digital future: intercultural digital competence for societies entering the era of digitalization and artificial intelligence," held within the framework of the 7th World Forum on Intercultural Dialogue in Baku.
According to Aliyev, access to information about one's rights is a fundamental right, and digital technologies should make such access more readily available.
"We had previously created a platform in Azerbaijan that consolidated all legal information. However, citizens encountered certain difficulties when trying to use this information. Previously, a user had to know the exact keywords to find the information they were looking for. However, in everyday conversation, people don’t typically use formal legal terminology. Even when the correct keywords were used, the system would return a multitude of legal articles, leaving the user struggling to determine which one actually addressed their specific question," he noted.
Aliyev pointed out that the AI-powered ‘e-Qanun.ai’ platform was developed to address these challenges.
"Now, citizens can describe their issues using everyday, conversational language. The platform generates an answer to the query and provides relevant recommendations. This significantly simplifies the process of accessing legal information," he emphasized.
The center’s executive remarked that one of the primary challenges when applying AI in the legal field is the risk of systems providing incorrect or fabricated information.
"General-purpose language models are trained on vast amounts of data collected from various sources worldwide, which increases the likelihood of generating incorrect answers. In the legal sector, such errors can pose serious problems. Our platform, however, utilizes a restricted database, which minimizes this risk," said Aliyev.
He added that it is also essential to develop artificial intelligence solutions for languages with a relatively smaller user base, such as the Azerbaijani language.
"Language shouldn’t be a barrier to people's use of modern technology. There are approximately 10 million Azerbaijani speakers, and we are striving to address the existing challenges in this area using our own resources," he stated.
Aliyev also touched upon the issue of building trust in AI platforms.
According to him, it’s impossible to gain user trust solely through advertising and promotional campaigns.
"Establishing trust in the field of artificial intelligence isn’t easy. Simply telling people that they can trust your platform, or running advertising campaigns to that effect, is not enough. Trust is built over time," he emphasized.
The CCO mentioned that it’s crucial for AI systems used in the legal sector to be trained in the Azerbaijani language and based on local data sources because even a simple translation of legal texts can lead to a change in their meaning.
He noted that when developing artificial intelligence products, one of the key requirements should be the explainability of the decisions made and the information provided by the system.
“Artificial intelligence must, first and foremost, explain why it reached a certain decision or why it generated specific content. On our platform, we indicate the source from which the information was drawn. Thus, the user can see the data upon which the AI-generated content is based,” he explained.
Aliyev noted that expanding citizens' access to information about their rights could facilitate their more active participation in the judicial and legal system.
"As people gain information about their rights, they will likely seek to engage more deeply with the judicial and legal system. Consequently, the number of legal cases in the courts may increase, which will necessitate the development of additional technological solutions for the courts," he stressed.
He further pointed out that the fact that AI models support certain languages doesn’t guarantee that the information provided in those languages will always be accurate.
"Technically, many AI models claim to support specific languages; however, it is crucial to understand what content is being generated in the background. Especially in legal systems, even simple translations can lead to shifts in meaning. Therefore, such systems must be trained using the Azerbaijani language and based on local sources," Aliyev added.