One of the very few things giving me joy lately: People being afraid of AI, feeling threatened and insecure in their capabilities, because maybe those aren't so great after all...
An AI lawyer was set to argue in court – real lawyers shut it down
131–140 of 708 posts
Re: An AI lawyer was set to argue in court – real lawyers shut it down
#132The HMCTS held a hackathon for the future tech in the UK court system a few years ago. The judges were people like the CEO of the courts, they also had lord chief justice. There were all sorts of firms like Linklaters, Pinsent Mason and Deloitte. We won with a simple Alexa lawyer that was to help poor rental tenants. It generated documents to send a landlord and possible legal advice. The idea was specifically for people who can not afford a lawyer. There was a lot of influential people who were very excited about this space, so it is strange when it actually gets implemented it's not allowed.
I wonder what the wider implications are for the legal system. Will there be less qualified human lawyers in the future due to the lack of junior roles that are filled by AI? Will lawyers be allowed to use AI to find different ways of looking at issues?
Re: An AI lawyer was set to argue in court – real lawyers shut it down
#133I always found lawyers to be interesting… they are not responsible for you. They help guide you and argue for your case. But if they mess up, that doesn’t send them to jail. You can fire them or report them. But that’s it. You’re still screwed. Really the only one in the court working for you, is yourself. So ideally we’d make it easier to represent yourself. As long as your capable of doing such. I quite like this i…
> I always found lawyers to be interesting… they are not responsible for you. They help guide you and argue for your case. But if they mess up, that doesn’t send them to jail. You can fire them or report them. But that’s it. You’re still screwed. A physician doesn't injure herself when she mistreats you either.
> A physician doesn't injure herself when she mistreats you either.
She can be sued and lose her license.
Re: An AI lawyer was set to argue in court – real lawyers shut it down
#134People choosing to represent themselves with an AI assistant is a big no. It is too dangerous.
Choosing not to vaccinate is a yes.
Owning a gun is a yes.
Wearing bullet proof vests and shooting each other for fun is also a yes. https://www.nwaonline.com/news/2020/aug/22/case-dropped-in-b...
What a strange way of having freedom.
Re: An AI lawyer was set to argue in court – real lawyers shut it down
#135Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is by design. Governmental systems are "captured" by special interests and made intentionally obtuse and complex as a barrier to entry. Lawyers and judges are a guild that works to make the law complex and extract rents from the productive economy. Over 1/3 of the U.S. Congress are attorneys as well.
I honestly don't think there is such a malicious intent behind it. Perhaps in some small instances. Generally, the fact of the matter is simply that law is highly complex and the way it evolves is almost always by creating new laws, not getting rid of old ones. That's unfortunate obviously, but just like you don't just rewrite the Linux kernel, you can't just reset the legal foundation.
Some, and maybe most, of the complexity is organic. But there are specific instances, like the tax code, that have been kept intentionally complex at the bequest of special interest groups.
And of course, laws are made mostly by lawyers. So they don't have much of an incentive to change things.
Re: An AI lawyer was set to argue in court – real lawyers shut it down
#136Earlier quoted context omitted.
You didn't answer my questions. Do you think it would decrease the odds of reoffending if they didn't get bail? If it doesn't, then it's two crimes either way, just timed differently. And after the policy settled in it would have negligible impact on the crime rate. Also if you're doing sentencing for two crimes at once you can give a longer punishment for the first crime and get them off the street longer.
Yes, it would decrease the odds, provided that after walking out of jail the probability of a criminal to commit a crime (that includes his intent to reoffend but also possible changes in the environment that happened during his time in jail that reduce his possibilities to do so) is less than before walking in, because they wouldn't get the chance to reoffend immediately .
I don't assume that someone coming out of a sentence is less likely to commit a crime. Isn't it often the opposite, because the US is so bad at rehabilitation?
Re: An AI lawyer was set to argue in court – real lawyers shut it down
#137There's two separate issues at play here. On the left hand, it's true that ChatGPT, while impressive, on its current incarnation sometimes returns correct responses, and some other times it returns seemingly correct hallucinations. Unless the accuracy and certainty is not over a certain threshold, say 95% for example, I don't think it would be safe to use it for critical use cases, like acting as a lawyer, as it very well might hallucinate laws or prior cases, etc.
On the right hand, lawyers see the writing on the wall and see AI as a threat to their really lucrative business, and they'll use any means at their disposal to outlaw it or slow the adoption of AI technologies to replace lawyers.
Hell, I'm a software engineer and I see the writing on the wall too, and I see AI as a threat as well. I also acknowledge the limitless opportunities. I'm at equal parts excited and terrified by what's coming.
Re: An AI lawyer was set to argue in court – real lawyers shut it down
#138Earlier quoted context omitted.
>Not sure anyone really would want to operate on themselves (because the need for a surgeon in an important event in their life is somehow "wrong"). Not operate, but since over here in Europe just about any piece of paper passes as a prescription, I tend to print my own. (Most people don't know this, but EU pharmacies are required to accept prescriptions from other EU countries. There's no standard format or verifica…
Wait, what? I can just print a foreign prescription for Adderall or Dilaudid and the pharmacy will accept it? I don't think that would work...
It depends on the country, usually there are national rules requiring special prescriptions for "fun" drugs like that.
If you can pick up drugs like that with an ordinary private prescription in your country, a foreign prescription should work.
For further information:
https://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/health/prescription-me...
https://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/health/prescription-me...
Re: An AI lawyer was set to argue in court – real lawyers shut it down
#139This is so fucking dumb. As if you need a lawyer to contest a parking ticket in the first place. The last time I got a parking ticket I had photos and documentary evidence that I should not have been liable. After I lodged my intent to contest the fine, the council sent me a letter saying how they win 97% of cases and I should just pay up now to avoid the risk. I called bullshit and turned up on my court date. There…
The issue here (as with many disruptive tech companies), is the regulatory system. It is illegal in most states to give legal advice if you are not licensed to practice law. If DoNotPay isn't licensed to practice law in California, they can't do this. And unless they have a plan to either get licensed in many states, or somehow change the law, then their business model sucks. It sounds to me that they haven't actuall…
Does the US have McKenzie Friends ? Seems like "No". You should get McKenzie Friends.
McKenzie Friends can't represent you in court, in most cases they're not allowed to address the court, but they can help you in all the other ways you'd expect, like quietly prompting you on what points to mention, keeping notes, ensuring you have the right paperwork. Friend stuff.
Re: An AI lawyer was set to argue in court – real lawyers shut it down
#140Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
Real lawyers can do these things too. The issue is that we cannot punish or disbar ChatGPT for misbehavior like this.
They are the same issue. Obviously lawyers are physically capable of lying, but they have strong incentives not to.