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An AI lawyer was set to argue in court – real lawyers shut it down

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Re: An AI lawyer was set to argue in court – real lawyers shut it down

#11
post #2

You can't just start practicing law without a license, you'll ruin somebody's life; they'll assume you, or the computer, knows what is going on, when in fact you just want Free Dollars. I don't want Dr. iPad Joe who spent a grand total of 15 minutes learning how to use ChatGPT making legal, medical, engineering, or other important decisions for me or the place I live. Now, I am of course free to use ChatGPT as a priv…

I think the stakes are not that high in this particular application. I see it as something akin to Turbotax, it helps you navigate a difficult environment but you should also exercise judgement to not screw everything up.

Re: An AI lawyer was set to argue in court – real lawyers shut it down

#12
post #9

I don't see the problem as long as the actual lawyer can intervene when necessary. If ChatGPT did something wrong, that lawyer would still be on the hook for deciding to continue using this tool so responsibility/liability/authenticity is not a problem. I get that they want to make some kind of subscription service to replace lawyers with AI (a terribly dystopian idea in my opinion, as only the rich would then have a…

> a terribly dystopian idea in my opinion, as only the rich would then have access to actual lawyers

The rich don't go to jail already. The crypto scammer paid a huge bail and got out on his private jet. That, to me, is far more dystopian than a cheap tool to help people appeal traffic tickets.

Re: An AI lawyer was set to argue in court – real lawyers shut it down

#14
post #2

You can't just start practicing law without a license, you'll ruin somebody's life; they'll assume you, or the computer, knows what is going on, when in fact you just want Free Dollars. I don't want Dr. iPad Joe who spent a grand total of 15 minutes learning how to use ChatGPT making legal, medical, engineering, or other important decisions for me or the place I live. Now, I am of course free to use ChatGPT as a priv…

How does failing to get rid of a traffic ticket ruin someone's life?

ChatGPT lies. It makes up facts, sources, and nonsense arguments.

Lying to a judge is generally not a good idea. You can go from traffic ticket to contempt of court real fast if you start lying in court.

ChatGPT also assumes you're speaking the truth. If you ask it about a topic and say "that's wrong, the actual facts are..." then it'll change argumentation to support your position. You probably don't want your legal representation to become your prosecutor when they use the right type of phrasing.

Re: An AI lawyer was set to argue in court – real lawyers shut it down

#15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Today, parking ticket. Tomorrow, DUI. Next week, a murder case. It's about putting the first wedge in.

As the AI gets better people will trust it with more and more kinds of cases and cases with more increased complexity. If people want to pay for a real licensed lawyer they are still able to do so.

> As the AI gets better people will trust it

AI is just informed search, a dwarf sitting on shoulders of human knowledge. There were medical "expert systems" in 2000s, yet we still have doctors.

In my understanding, in most cases AI will be a glorified assistant, not an authoritative decision-maker. Otherwise in collides head-on with barriers and semis. I won't trust such system even with a parking ticket, yet alone my life.

We're just at the top of a hype-cycle now. AI can do new things, but not as well as we dream or hope.

Re: An AI lawyer was set to argue in court – real lawyers shut it down

#16

What we have here is humans responding to change how they learned to. In the face of impending AI changes, software engineers build start ups and try to adapt hoping to capture some relevance. In the face of impending AI changes, lawyers threaten litigation.

Gross simplification.

> Here's how it was supposed to work: The person challenging a speeding ticket would wear smart glasses that both record court proceedings and dictate responses into the defendant's ear from a small speaker. The system relied on a few leading AI text generators, including ChatGPT and DaVinci.

- Recording court proceedings is already a big no in many countries around the world.

- Licensed activity is licensed activity. IBM Watson did not practice medicine it provided advisory information to licensed doctors, the onus of the decision is with the doctors. Much in the same way Joshua Browder could have done better due diligence and concluded that he could create a service to advise lawyers but could not create a service in replacement of lawyers.

- Joshua probably already knew all of this and is trying to advertise and/or gather funding for his company.

IANAL etc.

Re: An AI lawyer was set to argue in court – real lawyers shut it down

#17
post #2

You can't just start practicing law without a license, you'll ruin somebody's life; they'll assume you, or the computer, knows what is going on, when in fact you just want Free Dollars. I don't want Dr. iPad Joe who spent a grand total of 15 minutes learning how to use ChatGPT making legal, medical, engineering, or other important decisions for me or the place I live. Now, I am of course free to use ChatGPT as a priv…

Wait until you hear about this Electric Car company, using real people to beta test untried self driving software, on Real roads against other drivers and pedestrians...

Re: An AI lawyer was set to argue in court – real lawyers shut it down

#18
post #2

You can't just start practicing law without a license, you'll ruin somebody's life; they'll assume you, or the computer, knows what is going on, when in fact you just want Free Dollars. I don't want Dr. iPad Joe who spent a grand total of 15 minutes learning how to use ChatGPT making legal, medical, engineering, or other important decisions for me or the place I live. Now, I am of course free to use ChatGPT as a priv…

I find the need for lawyers a tragedy. Interactions with the judicial system are often some of the most important events in a person’s life. The fact that it’s necessary to pay someone hundreds or thousands of dollars an hour to help navigate the arcane process is sad and shouldn’t be necessary. It would be one thing if laws were meaningfully written down, so that anyone could read the statutes and build their own argument, but the laws are not written down in a way that has meaning unless you are willing to wade through centuries of case law.

Re: An AI lawyer was set to argue in court – real lawyers shut it down

#19
post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does failing to get rid of a traffic ticket ruin someone's life?

--->8 ChatGPT: "Your honor, that couldn't have been me, as I drive a red Mustang, not a blue minivan, and was in Nepal climbing a mountain at the time.." Defendant: "Your honor, that couldn't have been my, as I drive a red Mustang, not a blue minivan, and was in Nepal climbing a mountain at the time." Prosecutor: "Um, this photo clearly shows your face in this blue minivan, and there's no evidence you've been to Nepa…

I think the way forward might be an arbitration case, where they pay an actual legal expert in the right position to make binding decisions outside of the context of the normal law system.

In voluntary arbitration, you can bend the rules a lot more than in an actual court case.

Re: An AI lawyer was set to argue in court – real lawyers shut it down

#20
post #12
post #9

I don't see the problem as long as the actual lawyer can intervene when necessary. If ChatGPT did something wrong, that lawyer would still be on the hook for deciding to continue using this tool so responsibility/liability/authenticity is not a problem. I get that they want to make some kind of subscription service to replace lawyers with AI (a terribly dystopian idea in my opinion, as only the rich would then have a…

> a terribly dystopian idea in my opinion, as only the rich would then have access to actual lawyers The rich don't go to jail already. The crypto scammer paid a huge bail and got out on his private jet. That, to me, is far more dystopian than a cheap tool to help people appeal traffic tickets.

You're conflating a few different things. Being able to pay bail so you don't have to be in jail while you wait for your trial doesn't get you out of having a trial, and has nothing to do with needing lawyers.

What the parent was referring to is the fact that if AI starts to consume the low-end (starting with traffic tickets), actual lawyers for trials will become even more expensive, and thus poorer people will actually fare worse because they will lose their already-limited access to human lawyers. Yes, their case might get handled with less hassle and cheaper, but the quality of the service is not -better-, it's just cheaper/easier.

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