Law is logic but it's soft logic. So yes all we need is to get AI to understand the concept of mercy, basically to capture the spirit, the 'why' of the law ins

Law is logic but it's soft logic. So yes all we need is to get AI to understand the concept of mercy, basically to capture the spirit, the 'why' of the law instead of the 'what'. A lot of the dumb laws where mercy is frequently allowed are that way because they were designed to be, as catch-alls for harder to define grievances. An AI 'judge' just needs to understand what it means to be a good person. Of course then that could be expanded to an AI which simply tallies moral points and for which a given person committing a given crime gets a punishment designed to best rehabilitate them not to commit the crime again. But that would also be a system which is judge jury and executioner and not even human, and has some self-designed ultimate moral code...thats a lot to get right, and a lot to go wrong.