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AI-powered lawyer will be first of its kind to represent defendant in court

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Re: AI-powered lawyer will be first of its kind to represent defendant in court

#121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Its a state created problem and you expect them to solve it? Private entities are the way these problems are always solved efficiently. Cant wait for lawyers to be obsolete personally.

So wait, lawyers are state entities?

Public defenders are state entities. The state failing to fund its justice system to guarantee speedy trial, competent representation, etc. is a state problem, not a problem of technology.

Re: AI-powered lawyer will be first of its kind to represent defendant in court

#122

Attorney here, I think it’s too early stages to run with this tech. It’s not just the confidentially incorrectness people have mentioned. If you ask it for legal citations for an argument, it makes them up because it has no concept of truth to filter on. Make all the jokes you want about lawyers stretching the truth, but citing State v. Johnson, (Minn. 2007) when that doesn’t exist is going to be bad for the individu…

Any insight on how the planes keep the Wi-Fi going? If the cell service internet provider’s handoff speed is too slow, does that mean they’re doing satellite internet in-flight? It was mentioned in the article that the tech has won some legal arguments regarding in-flight Wi-Fi refunds. (When the paid-for service didn’t work.)

No idea about the tech planes are using, or their contracts. But that’s a good example of the kind of issue a tech solution, in general, can possibly help with. No attorney has the time to take on such a case because it would be for just a few dollars. Less than an hour of billable time probably. We have class actions, but those have their own set of problems to overcome.

Re: AI-powered lawyer will be first of its kind to represent defendant in court

#125

Once this tech gets good, and everyone has access to a high-powered legal team for pennies, I am a little concerned that anyone will be able to DDoS the legal system. It's already possible for giant corporations to bury smaller actors in paperwork. They can and do crush people with this. What happens when everyone has this ability?

The legal system is already under DDOS if you want a speedy trial. There are people in jail for years without being found guilty for anything simply because the courts don’t have enough capacity to manage their current criminal trial load.

Re: AI-powered lawyer will be first of its kind to represent defendant in court

#126
post #6

>The ultimate goal, according to Browder, is to democratize legal representation by making it free for those who can't afford it, in some cases eliminating the need for pricey attorneys. this is the core issue I have with companies and tech like this: they try to solve social issues with technology and business. the issue of accessible defense is an issue of institutional failure that rests on the shoulders of the st…

You can represent yourself in court in many cases, the problem is that you will likely fail as you won't be very good at case law, abiding by all sorts of conventions and therefore lose. If AI can help you make properly referenced arguments it might well solve a societal problem to a degree.

Re: AI-powered lawyer will be first of its kind to represent defendant in court

#127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with this is "how do you assure the AI isn't bold face lying to the defendant". For a natural text generation/chat system like ChatGPT, at the moment this is effectively impossible and frankly I don't see it being sufficiently fixed for something as complex as teaching law to a non-law-student any time in the near future.

I think these discussions always seem focused on the ideal state of the "AI is perfect and gives correct answers" and not the current state where the "AI constructs sentences that are structured correctly, but are filled with inaccuracies and illogical nonsense."

If we want to steelman AI why shouldn’t we also steelman the court system? Assuming a perfect AI is about the same as assuming a well functioning court system. Otherwise we should be assuming a flawed, potentially racist, confidently incorrect AI vs a flawed, excessively slow, definitely racist court system.

Re: AI-powered lawyer will be first of its kind to represent defendant in court

#128
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree. Technology is the perfect solution for problems like these. So many societal issues today arise because systems developed centuries ago cannot keep up with a population that has grown exponentially since then. Tech's core feature is being able to scale. There will be more and more systemic reliance on automation and AI as time goes on, since that's the only sensible way out.

> So many societal issues today arise because systems developed centuries ago cannot keep up with a population that has grown exponentially since then. If you had 1 lawyer per 100 people in 1800 and you had 1 lawyer per 100 people today, I don't see a scaling problem with population. Indeed in the UK in 2012 there were 120,000 solicitors for 64 million Today it's 160,000 for 68 million That's a 30% increase in lawyer…

> If you had 1 lawyer per 100 people in 1800 and you had 1 lawyer per 100 people today, I don't see a scaling problem with population. [...] Why do we need more lawyers per person today than 10 years ago?

How many more laws are there? Being a lawyer is like 90% reading and collating documents to filter out relevant information. We have a lot more law and a lot more documentation to sift through these days.

Re: AI-powered lawyer will be first of its kind to represent defendant in court

#129
post #15
post #6

>The ultimate goal, according to Browder, is to democratize legal representation by making it free for those who can't afford it, in some cases eliminating the need for pricey attorneys. this is the core issue I have with companies and tech like this: they try to solve social issues with technology and business. the issue of accessible defense is an issue of institutional failure that rests on the shoulders of the st…

I disagree. Technology is the perfect solution for problems like these. So many societal issues today arise because systems developed centuries ago cannot keep up with a population that has grown exponentially since then. Tech's core feature is being able to scale. There will be more and more systemic reliance on automation and AI as time goes on, since that's the only sensible way out.

We have remedies when a lawyer is incompetent. What sort of remedies do we have when the AI is incompetent? Was there some EULA? Did someone click it? Should that even be allowed? It is my position that the companies that produce AI lawyers (and "expert systems" of any type) should bear full liability for everything and anything that their product does wrong.

Re: AI-powered lawyer will be first of its kind to represent defendant in court

#130
post #6

>The ultimate goal, according to Browder, is to democratize legal representation by making it free for those who can't afford it, in some cases eliminating the need for pricey attorneys. this is the core issue I have with companies and tech like this: they try to solve social issues with technology and business. the issue of accessible defense is an issue of institutional failure that rests on the shoulders of the st…

How is this a social problem? Lawyers are expensive, because education takes time, motivation and competence. So it's an economical problem, something the state can't easily solve. Technology can make an impact here and sidestep or even ignore those problems.

> So it's an economical problem, something the state can't easily solve.

The state can simplify the law and eliminate or stop prosecuting laws that don't directly harm people, thus reducing the demand for lawyers. It's not just an economical problem.

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