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

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171–180 of 708 posts

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

#171
post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why would you need to challenge that? That's precisely the question, yes. > Are you implying something that's more than one in a million? Court cases aren't about the common occurrences.

> That's precisely the question, yes. Don't be vague on purpose. Say what you're implying. > Court cases aren't about the common occurrences. Usually they still are. But I'm talking about things being very rare among court cases . Do you think there is a systemic problem of false court transcripts? And I really don't think such a thing is the reason not to allow recording.

We do certain things to avoid the image of impropriety.

We also look askance at people who refuse to allow oversight into their work.

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

#173
post #162
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.

It is actually OK and correct for justice system to NOT keep people in jail prior sentencing unless necessary. It is dishonest to conflate "not being sentenced yet" with "got out".

If that's the case, why involve money in it? About a third of people who are arrested cannot afford bail, while if you are rich (maybe through crime), you can pay it. Of course bail is a mechanism for differential treatment between rich and poor in the judicial system.

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

#174

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 hum…

What about when the lawyer tech becomes open source and you can have your own personal lawyer in your pocket at all times?

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

#175
post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

The very abstract of your linked paper refutes your claims.

> The resulting model [...] performs encouragingly, but remains inferior to clinicians.

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

#176

Earlier 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 .

What happened to innocent until proven guilty?

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

#177
post #173
post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is actually OK and correct for justice system to NOT keep people in jail prior sentencing unless necessary. It is dishonest to conflate "not being sentenced yet" with "got out".

If that's the case, why involve money in it? About a third of people who are arrested cannot afford bail, while if you are rich (maybe through crime), you can pay it. Of course bail is a mechanism for differential treatment between rich and poor in the judicial system.

[deleted]

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

#178
post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the state can't just let ordinary folk hang themselves with cheap half-baked "solutions". Why hasn't the practice of self-representation been banned then? It's almost without exception a surefire way to hang oneself in a court room.

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

What's the difference between self representation and practicing law without a license - is there an exemption for unlicensed practitioners when they are performing on their own behalf, or this is a distinct category somehow?

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

#179
post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You can only sue for negligence if you can prove you were going to win without the negligence. And it will cost you ten thousand dollars just to begin the process. That's not true. For instance, missing a filing deadline is considered professional negligence, regardless of the strength of the case.

Thanks! That might be very important info. However, there seems to still be the caveat that missing that deadline needs to have "caused you harm" - which entails proving that you would have won your case otherwise, no?

At a minimum, you'd be entitled to any fees paid to the lawyer regardless of the outcome.

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

#180
Well, the comments about the company not doing things correctly (licensing the algorithm), are correct.

It's actually critically important to have some kind of license to represent people in court, as well as someone to pillory, if they screw up, as it prevents some truly evil stuff from happening (I have seen many people robbed blind by licensed lawyers, and it would be a thousand times worse, if they could be represented by anyone that sounds convincing enough). The stakes are really high, and we shouldn't mess around (not in all cases, of course, but it would really suck, if someone got the needle, because a programmer forgot a semicolon).

That said, I think it's only a matter of time, before a significant amount of legal stuff is handled by AI. AI shines, in environments with lots of structure and rules; which pretty much defines the law.

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