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Chatbot that overturned 160k parking fines now helping refugees claim asylum

theguardian.com

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Re: Chatbot that overturned 160k parking fines now helping refugees claim asylum

#61

Post by [deleted] »

andrenotgiant wrote: post #56
dao- wrote: post #10

> The 20-year-old chose Facebook Messenger as a home for the latest incarnation of his robot lawyer because of accessibility. “It works with almost every device, making it accessible to over a billion people,” he said. That can't be the whole story... A web app could have been at least as accessible. I guess Facebook offers APIs that make developing this kind of application easier than looking for other frameworks or…

The idea of Facebook platform being more accessible than the web is scary to me, but not surprising. Think about non-tech-savvy users on low-end devices, Facebook is familiar, and there's no responsiveness or web accessibility issues, it can feel faster because Facebook can optimize what is getting downloaded. It is scary when you extend this out a few years, FB and Google continue to extend the line of what gets con…

[deleted]

Re: Chatbot that overturned 160k parking fines now helping refugees claim asylum

#62

Post by [deleted] »

ptaipale wrote: post #45
taurath wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Capital flows completely freely between borders, but people can't. I don't really blame anyone for being economic migrants - they're just refugees of a different type.

Of course I don't blame anyone for being an economic migrant. It's a very natural thing to do: search for a better life. It's what I would do. Economic and technical development has progressed in Africa and Asia so that larger numbers of people than ever are able to consider migration. We see that now on the Libyan coast. However, particularly for European governments, it's now becoming visible that there is a select…

[deleted]

Re: Chatbot that overturned 160k parking fines now helping refugees claim asylum

#63

Post by icebraining »

emodendroket wrote: post #4
NegatioN wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I totally agree. But the common denominator is that both of these battles can be won by deep knowledge of the beurouchratic process. I believe bots can be better equipped to deal with this than humans in the long run.

I can see that, especially with the language barrier (even if you want to apply for a visa for a foreign spouse, as I did, the paperwork is voluminous and complex), but if your case is anything other than dead-simple you can't really duplicate a lawyer's experience dealing with immigration officers (and judges? I don't know exactly how this process works), knowledge of their particular individual tendencies, etc.

Sure, but a chatbot is better than a lawyer they can't afford.

Re: Chatbot that overturned 160k parking fines now helping refugees claim asylum

#64

Post by takasc2 »

ryandrake wrote: post #43
omash wrote: post #30

Can someone explain how the first chatbot was any better than an interactive form?

My guess is they did market research and concluded that this interface was somehow the one their target demographic preferred. If I had an app to write and learned that customers were most likely to buy it with a UI that involved waving the phone and grunting at it, I'd just shrug and build it that way.

Here is how almost every government form in the UK works - long interactive form, mutiple pages of input. Then you get an error message at the end (or, sometimes you submit the form don't get an error message and then receive an error message in the post after 7/14 days). its easy to see how an interactive form that checks for consistency as it goes would win out!

Re: Chatbot that overturned 160k parking fines now helping refugees claim asylum

#65

Post by [deleted] »

ryandrake wrote: post #43
omash wrote: post #30

Can someone explain how the first chatbot was any better than an interactive form?

My guess is they did market research and concluded that this interface was somehow the one their target demographic preferred. If I had an app to write and learned that customers were most likely to buy it with a UI that involved waving the phone and grunting at it, I'd just shrug and build it that way.

[deleted]

Re: Chatbot that overturned 160k parking fines now helping refugees claim asylum

#66

Post by AtheistOfFail »

taurath wrote: post #26
ptaipale wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure if this is actual "civic action". At least if this is deployed in Europe, it sounds to me more like a deliberate action to completely destroy what remains of the asylum system, which is already struggling both technically and with its political and popular support, due to the large number of applicants who are economic migrants rather than actual refugees. It may be different with U.S. and Canada, though - t…

Capital flows completely freely between borders, but people can't. I don't really blame anyone for being economic migrants - they're just refugees of a different type.

Yeah, but capital has lobbyists.

Re: Chatbot that overturned 160k parking fines now helping refugees claim asylum

#67

Post by cordite »

wutbrodo wrote: post #32
omash wrote: post #30

Can someone explain how the first chatbot was any better than an interactive form?

It's something I personally find very bizarre, but I've definitely noticed that a lot of people have a very strong mental block about doing things on a computer, or even a browser. These tasks instantly seem 10x more daunting, and people feel like they can mess it up easily. Chat interfaces that are thin wrappers over web forms don't provide any actual functional value, but on the basis of these observations I could…

It likely gives end users a sense of itemized reward. Rather than showing a vast huge form, or even a progress bar, a chat bot can choose what next to prioritize and present. Not all parts of a form may be applicable, showing what is needed and letting the end user continue at their leisure reduces stress and cognitive overhead. The above is likely why tax companies have been doing better as of late when it comes to completing tax forms.

Re: Chatbot that overturned 160k parking fines now helping refugees claim asylum

#68

Post by taurath »

nyolfen wrote: post #53
throwaway_374 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn't Breitbart. Your nazi kind aren't welcome here. Edit: Let the Trump boys downvote away but this is precisely the hallmarks of nazism, blaming an entire group of people. I will not sit silently while this happens before my eyes. Go ahead, downvote away.

you can cover your ears and shout 'nazi' all you'd like, but i'm not an extremist in any sense, or even a trump supporter. what i said may be controversial, but it's rooted in well established fact. people can have real concerns about the negative effects of immigration without being an evil boogeyman.

I do agree, and it's totally justified depending on what level one cares about. Is it yourself? Your family? Your community? Your country? Humanity as a whole?

I was more pointing that we have a long history as a country and an economic system of harming the less able to defend themselves economically. To what extent industry helps vs hurts the less well off and who bears responsibility is an open and worthwhile debate - but I'm pushing a bit against the PR that everything that is good for business is good for the people. Is Walmart better for towns if all the local stores close down, and the store profit is shipped back to HQ instead of the community? It can be similar with an oil company contracted to provide an economy for a town in Africa.

Re: Chatbot that overturned 160k parking fines now helping refugees claim asylum

#69

Post by ksdale »

taurath wrote: post #25
fnbr wrote: post #7

What worries me about this is the liability- if you mess up someone's asylum claim, they can die, or suffer extreme harm (e.g. if they're tortured). I'd be interested in seeing how DoNotPay manages their liability.

At what level are they allowed to say something to the effect of "We are trying out very best to make this as useful and applicable to everyone, and in order to help as many people as possible we'd like you to agree to not hold us liable for anything bad that happens. Use us as a resource but we are not fully authoritative."

I'm not sure how close this is to being the practice of law, but lawyers are generally not allowed to contract away malpractice liability. As a lawyer, I feel like it would be beneficial for everyone to allow it in certain cases, like here, but as with everything, there's the potential for abuse.

Re: Chatbot that overturned 160k parking fines now helping refugees claim asylum

#70

Post by dgellow »

erikpukinskis wrote: post #60
andrenotgiant wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The idea of Facebook platform being more accessible than the web is scary to me, but not surprising. Think about non-tech-savvy users on low-end devices, Facebook is familiar, and there's no responsiveness or web accessibility issues, it can feel faster because Facebook can optimize what is getting downloaded. It is scary when you extend this out a few years, FB and Google continue to extend the line of what gets con…

This is partly a consequence of phone manufacturers implementing notification APIs for native apps first, and on several years later in browsers. Although somewhat it's just the nature of the beast that these things take a little while to percolate into each browser. I don't know how complete support is for web notifications, but eventually it will be a larger number than Facebook installed base. You can sometimes ge…

Are you using native notifications with websites? I'm really annoyed by the trend of actual websites asking for access to the notification feature when I just want to read an article then leave.

The last thing I need is more notifications.

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