The impact of artificial intelligence on crime, policing and justice will be examined at a talk held by South Swindon MP Sir Robert Buckland next week.

Sir Robert is a barrister and King’s Counsel and has served in government as both Solicitor General and the Secretary of State for Justice under Boris Johnson’s Prime Ministership.

He is conducting some research into the matter of AI and criminal justice as an unpaid project at the John F Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University in the US, working largely online from his home in Swindon.

The talk, put on as part of the spring series of lectures by the Swindon Philosophical Society is called: “The Ethics of AI in Justice.”

Sir Robert said: “It’s an adaptation of a talk I gave remotely last month at the University of Worcester.”

That inaugural annual lecture to the university’s Constitution, Rights and Justice research group examined whether the rapid growth of digitalisation of communications and artificial intelligence is a threat to good justice or provides new hope.

The meeting and talk start at 7.30pm on Friday April 21 at the Friends Meeting House at 79 Eastcott Hill.

There is no need to book a place, those attending can just turn up, but there is a small charge to cover costs.