Testamentary capacity assessment in dementia using artificial intelligence: prospects and challenges

Abstract

Testamentary capacity (TC), a set of capacities involved in making a valid Will, has become prominent in capacity evaluations due to the demographic increase in older persons and associated increase in cognitive impairment. The assessment of contemporaneous TC follows the criteria derived from the Banks v Goodfellow case, which do not bind capacity solely on the basis of presence of a cognitive disorder. Although effort is being made for establishing more objective criteria for TC judgment, variations in situational complexity call for incorporating the different circumstances of the testator in capacity assessment. Artificial intelligence (AI) technologies such as statistical machine learning have been used in forensic psychiatry mainly for the prediction of aggressive behavior and recidivism but little has been done in the area of capacity assessment. However, the statistical machine learning model responses are difficult to interpret and explain, which presents problems with regard to the new General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) of the European Union. In this Perspective we present a framework for an AI decision support tool for TC assessment. The framework is based on AI decision support and explainable AI (XAI) technology.