Generative Artificial Intelligence in Small Value Consumer Claims: Hallucination Risk, System Design, and Governance in Online Dispute Resolution
Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: This article examines the benefits and risks of generative artificial intelligence (‘GenAI’) use in an important domain that is currently under-serviced by the civil justice system: small value consumer claims, where GenAI has been proposed as a means of closing the access to justice gap. In the online dispute resolution (‘ODR’) field, use of digital tools such as expert systems and rules-based chatbots has been advanced to assist potential litigants. GenAI has considerable attractions in this context because of its adaptivity and flexibility in responding to prompts. The question is whether the risk of hallucinations inherent in GenAI undermines these benefits. While strategies such as retrieval augmented generation may improve the accuracy of GenAI in legal domains, it is unclear whether this technique can overcome the information asymmetries that typically characterise consumer disputes. Any resolution of these issues requires careful attention to ODR design and artificial intelligence governance.
DOI: 10.53637/qkhj4842
Authors: Vivi Tan, Jeannie Marie Paterson, Julian Webb
Institution: The University of Melbourne
Subfield: Strategy and Management
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: bronze
OpenAlex ID: W7122825284