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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

#151

Post by bombolo »

colechristensen wrote: post #27
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.

>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.

It's also a problem to put people in jail without a trial.

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

#152

Post by aaaaaA4 »

short_sells_poo wrote: post #102
aaaaaA3 wrote: post #87

Earlier 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…

At least in Switzerland, I always had to have blood tests done before the doctor would prescribe anti-biotics. The core issue you have is with the doctor prescribing things willy-nilly.

That might be a thing in some EU countries, but it's certainly not the norm across the EU. You can still buy antibiotics without a prescription in many EU countries, for example in Spain it's entirely dependent on the pharmacist.

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

#153

Post by shubb »

parsimo2010 wrote: post #130
dools wrote: post #123

This 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…

If GPT can pass an MBA paper, can a carefully trained chatbot mixed with hand coded logic pass a bar exam?

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

#154

Post by parsimo2010 »

tialaramex wrote: post #139
parsimo2010 wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McKenzie_friend

The US does not have them, and they are not legal. I agree that they could be useful. But in the US you have strictly two options- represent yourself to a court, or let a bar-certified lawyer represent you. Nobody else gets to help in court. Outside of court, legal assistants help lawyers with administrative stuff- doing legal research, organizing paperwork, etc. But the lawyer holds the sole responsibility to the court.

Unless DoNotPay has a strategy to change the law, they are in trouble. It seems that this case was a publicity stunt and not part of a larger strategy.

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

#155

Post by autoexec »

squarefoot wrote: post #146

AI lawyers indeed look scary, but I can't but think of the implications should they become one day way cheaper than carbon based ones. Imagine all those cases where $BIGCORP is technically in the wrong, but today can screw some poor sap just by dragging things until he can't afford legal defense anymore.

I'm guessing that this tech won't end up creating equality for poor people in the justice system.

Either it won't work as well as actual lawyers in which case it will become the only option poor people have (basically replacing public defenders), or it will work just as well as human representation (or even better), in which case 'AI lawyer' companies will charge just as much if not more for their services as the human lawyers do.

DoNotPay may be a humble start up now, but if the tech proves to be effective they (and other future AI companies) will eventually fleece their customers just as human lawyers do today. Not because they have to, or because it is in any way justified, but just because they can and doing it would make them richer.

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

#156

Post by NoboruWataya »

markogrady wrote: post #132

The 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 pe…

Apart from being different jurisdictions, they are different issues. The situation in the article involved a pro se litigant feeding courtroom proceedings to the AI and regurgitating its responses in real time. In that situation you are effectively handing your agency over to the AI. You can't really be said to be representing yourself in any real sense; you are mindlessly parroting what is fed to you.

The situation you describe seems to be more akin to an advanced search or information portal that people can use to guide their self-representation, or even their decision to engage lawyers/discussions with their lawyers (of course, maybe I'm misunderstanding). That stuff has basically always been allowed; nobody is threatening to prosecute Google because pro se litigants use it in their research. There are plenty of websites out there that discuss tenants' rights. There are even template tenancy agreements available online for free.

Also, what were you proposing to use as the knowledge base for your Alexa lawyer? Were you really planning on using ChatGPT or some other general purpose AI? Or would the knowledge base be carefully curated by qualified professionals? And who would create and maintain it, the state? A regulated firm? Or a startup with a name like "DoNotPay"?

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

#157

Post by Pinegulf »

dools wrote: post #123

This 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…

True, but I don't thinks it's about if you need one or not. I think it's about money. Luddites trying to keep automation out from their profession.

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

#158

Post by notahacker »

xienze wrote: post #129
notahacker wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Self representation doesn't involve some mountebank selling you a "robot lawyer that will get you off your parking ticket" solution

So what if I just decided of my own accord to use ChatGPT and train it myself? Or someone on GitHub made a fully trained version of it available in a Docker container, for free?

Then nobody would issue legal threats to you for selling "Robot Lawyer" services. But you probably wouldn't get permission to use Google Glass in the courtroom either, so you'd have to commit your legal arguments to memory as well as hoping the AI hadn't ingested too much "freeman of the land" nonsense...

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

#159

Post by parsimo2010 »

shubb wrote: post #153
parsimo2010 wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

If GPT can pass an MBA paper, can a carefully trained chatbot mixed with hand coded logic pass a bar exam?

Only four states allow people to take the bar exam without earning a juris doctorate (J.D.) from law school. And three other states require some law school experience but do not require graduating with a J.D.

So in 43 states the answer is no. A chatbot never attended law school and doesn't have a J.D., so it can't take the exam. If it can't take the exam, it can't pass.

I suppose if you could get the chatbot permission to take the exam, a properly trained one could pass. But as I said in my post up a level, the issue isn't the AI chatbot. It's the rules.

https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/career-development/can-...

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

#160

Post by nindalf »

shubb wrote: post #153
parsimo2010 wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

If GPT can pass an MBA paper, can a carefully trained chatbot mixed with hand coded logic pass a bar exam?

LLMs can already pass a medical exam. https://arxiv.org/abs/2212.13138

So maybe?

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