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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

#21

Post by dragonwriter »

jeroenhd wrote: 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…

> If they just wanted to show the world their product was viable, why didn't they pay for a real lawyer who's down to their luck to read out the crap ChatGPT was spewing out so there wouldn't be any legal gray area?

They tried that, but swung for the fences for publicity: they had a $1,000,000 offer to any attorney with a case pending before the Supreme Court to use it for oral argument.

Up until they abandoned the whole robot lawyer idea, that offer was open but apparently got no takers.

> You'd also need a fast typist to feed the record into ChatGPT of course, because you can't just record lawsuits,

You also generally can’t use an earpiece to get a feed in the courtroom, either.

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

#22

Post by Barrin92 »

Absolutely atrocious stunt on the part of that company. A glorified chatbot is not itself legally accountable or trained lawyer and it cannot seriously represent anyone. I assume the entire purpose of this was to bait the obvious shutdown and then complain on the internet about the legacy lawyers or whatever to generate press. Reminds me of the 'sentient AI' Google guy.

Is this going to be the new grift in the industry?

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

#23

Post by raydiatian »

DoingIsLearning wrote: post #16
raydiatian wrote: post #3

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 activit…

Ahaha

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

#24

Post by golemotron »

jeroenhd wrote: 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…

> I don't see the problem as long as the actual lawyer can intervene when necessary.

There's a big problem. Not all wrongness can be identified in the moment. AI can produce convincing wrongness unintentionally and easily.

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

#26

Post by dragonwriter »

charcircuit wrote: post #6
PostOnce wrote: 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?

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

The downside of contesting a traffic ticket is not “failing to get rid of the ticket”. The ticket amount amounts to a no contest plea bargain offer, not the maximum penalty for the offense, not to mentiom the potential additional penalties for violating court rules.

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

#27

Post by colechristensen »

epups wrote: post #12
jeroenhd wrote: 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.

>The crypto scammer paid a huge bail and got out on his private jet.

Locally, it's a somewhat significant problem that people are getting caught for violent crimes and getting released immediately and reoffending.

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

#28

Post by Dylan16807 »

pocketarc wrote: post #20
epups wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 actu…

> the fact that if AI starts to consume the low-end (starting with traffic tickets), actual lawyers for trials will become even more expensive

That should only happen if lawyers become very niche or if those low end cases are subsidizing trials.

I doubt the former, and the latter means the situation is already bad and mainly just the type of unfairness would change.

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

#29

Post by joshka »

jeroenhd wrote: 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…

The problem is that ChatGPT makes up convincing sounding case law, reference court rules that either don't exist or don't say what the summary says, reference the same issues with legislation, and do so with 100% confidence of the truth of these statements. ChatGPT is good for discovering potential arguments, and summarizing existing ones, but it's not there yet for the fidelity necessary for legal practice.

It's not all gloom. ChatGPT is pretty decent at writing pleadings and legal argument when you feed it the necessary bits though.

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

#30

Post by dragonwriter »

rvz wrote: post #25
monkeydust wrote: post #4

Hardly surprising, you try to automate lawyers they are going to get litigious.

Exactly, Unsurprising that DoNotPay was going to get sued to the ground and had to back out.

Its too bad they didn’t have a competent AI lawyer they could hace used to review their plan for gaping holes like violating the state unauthorized practice of law statute and local courtroom rules.

If they had, they could have saved thrmselves a lot of trouble, or designed a less-illegal publicity stunt.

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