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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

#181
There is going to be a lot of this happening. With lawyers, doctors, journalists, all kinds of expensive experts and consultants are going to face some competition from tools like this used by their customers to reduce their dependence on expensive experts or at least to get a second opinion; or even a first opinion.

Whether that's misguided or not is not the question. The only question is how good/valuable the AI advice is going to be. Initially, you might expect lots of issues with this. Or at least areas where it under performs or is not optimal. But it's already showing plenty of potential and it's only going to improve from here.

It's natural for experts to feel threatened by this but not a very productive attitude long term. It would be prudent for them to embrace this, or at least acknowledge this, and integrate it in their work process so they can earn their money in the areas where these tools still fall short by focusing less on the boring task of doing very routine cases and more on the less routine cases.

Same with doctors. Whether they like it or not, patients are going to show up having used these tools and having a diagnosis ready. Or second guessing the diagnosis they get from their doctor. When the AI diagnosis is clearly wrong, that's a problem of course (and a liability issue potentially). But there are going to be a lot of cases where AI is going to suggest some sane things or even better things. And of course no doctor is perfect. I know of a lot of cases where people shop around to get second opinions. Reason: some doctors get it wrong or are not necessarily up to speed with the latest research. And of course some people can't really afford medical help. That's sad but a real issue.

Instead of banning these tools, I expect a few years from now, doctors, lawyers, etc. will use tools like this to speed up their work, dig through lots of information they never read, and do their work more efficiently. I expect some hospitals and insurers will start insisting on these tools being used pretty soon actually. There's a cost argument that less time should be wasted on routine stuff and there's a quality argument as well. AIs should be referring patients to doctors as needed but handle routine cases without human intervention or at least prepare most of the work for final approval.

Same with lawyers. They could write a lot of legalese manually. Or they could just do a quick check on the generated letters and documents. They bill per hour of course but they'll be competing with lawyers billing less hours for the same result.

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

#182
post #153

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?

IIRC, a thread was posted on here indicating ChatGPT already had

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

#183
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…

One could also argue the real problem is the tech industry constantly ignoring regulations that were put in place for good reasons. Car dealerships are for sure a clear example of regulatory capture, but “legal advice from lawyers”, “medicine from doctors”, “insurance from companies that can prove they can pay out”, and “equities backed by actual assets” all exist for good reasons.

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

#184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are the same issue. Obviously lawyers are physically capable of lying, but they have strong incentives not to.

On the other hand, prosecutors don't get any consequences for lying (see Doug Evans). Maybe they should just target their product at DAs.

accountability for prosecuters is not a tech problem.

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

#185
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 w…

You can't use electronic devices at the supreme court and the consequences for the lawyer for doing so (plus the effects of being questioned by supreme court judges on small details of case law) would probably be pretty dire

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

#187
post #33
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. I don't believe there was an actual lawyer here: > 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.

Most judges won't allow you to record video in their court room anyways.

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

#188
Maybe I'm not fully understanding here but isn't the defendant entitled to represent themselves?

Couldn't the defendant just do what the lawyer had planned?

The complaining letters make it out that you cannot participate in law if you're not a bar member..

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

#189

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

Here’s a Twitter thread where a lawyer used their service for a few items. The results are significantly subpar. The noise about criminal referrals is just cover for the fact that their service was so bad, in my opinion.

https://twitter.com/kathryntewson/status/1617917837879963648

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

#190

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…

One could also argue the real problem is the tech industry constantly ignoring regulations that were put in place for good reasons. Car dealerships are for sure a clear example of regulatory capture, but “legal advice from lawyers”, “medicine from doctors”, “insurance from companies that can prove they can pay out”, and “equities backed by actual assets” all exist for good reasons.

Licenses for cutting hair or applying makeup? https://www.mprnews.org/amp/story/2019/11/13/freelance-weddi...
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