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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

#231

Post by naasking »

jonstewart wrote: post #183
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…

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.

> One could also argue the real problem is the tech industry constantly ignoring regulations that were put in place for good reasons

They were good reasons. By definition, disruptive technologies change the situation. Sometimes for the better, sometimes not. You have to leave room for innovation or you stagnate.

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

#233

Post by izacus »

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…

> This is so fucking dumb. As if you need a lawyer to contest a parking ticket in the first place.

If this is dumb, then remove the regulation / requirement for the lawyer. Don't "fix" this by generating and injecting bullshit into the system and requiring that judges and everyone else now sift through the generated dross.

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

#234

Post by naasking »

hypertele-Xii wrote: post #175
nindalf wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Being inferior to clinicians doesn't entail it didn't pass.

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

#235

Post by pseingatl »

mensetmanusman wrote: post #190
jonstewart wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

Milton Friedman covered this in Capitalism and Freedom.

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

#236

Post by deltarholamda »

tablespoon wrote: post #209
jonstewart wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> One could also argue the real problem is the tech industry constantly ignoring regulations that were put in place for good reasons This is it. The tech company wants the ability to sell a shoddy product to its customers, and the legal system said no. And frankly, I don't know how anyone could honestly claim (without being ignorant or deluded) that feeding legal arguments into court, output from modern-day voice rec…

>The legal system is no joke, and if there weren't regulations about who can practice law, you'd have all kinds of fly-by-night people getting paid to do it while getting their clients thrown in jail

That sort of highlights the problem. The legal system is supposed to be about ensuring fair and impartial justice. What the legal system is actually about is providing jobs for people in the legal system.

Lawyers make laws, directly or indirectly, and thus the legal system has become insanely complicated and nearly impossible to navigate without paying the lawyer toll. It's more about hiring your own bully to keep other bullies from bullying you than any airy-fairy "justice". The "never talk to cops" video comes to mind, where the lawyer gives a few examples of how a perfectly law-abiding person can run afoul of the law without meaning to.

I've often said that if you really want to make a lawyer squirm, suggest that we have socialized law care. Most modern countries have some version of socialized or single payer health care, so why not make it the same for legal services? After all, fair and equal justice under the law is definitely something most national constitutions guarantee in some way, but getting a hip replacement is not. Why should rich people get access to better legal service than regular people?

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

#237

Post by pseingatl »

ClarityJones wrote: post #214
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…

> It is illegal in most states to give legal advice if you are not licensed to practice law. You also can't have a human in the next room feeding you lines... even if that person is an attorney. However, a party / attorney certainly can bring in notes / a casebook / etc. You can usually bring in a laptop, with search functions, pdfs, etc. An AI that quickly presents relevant information, documents, caselaw, etc. woul…

You can have a non-lawyer represent a company or an individual in an arbitration or mediation if the parties agree.

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

#238

Post by g_p »

brokenodo wrote: post #191

Aside from the question of whether this plan was legal, DoNotPay seems like a terrible product. The results it generates seem laughably bad, and it’s questionable whether “AI” is actually involved when it takes them literal days to generate a document for certain types of requests. https://www.techdirt.com/2023/01/24/the-worlds-first-robot-l ...

Indeed - and this is not new. Many years ago, I took a look to see what all the fuss was all about.

From start to end, he/his product seemed amateurish. From giving out a herokuapp.com subdomain in early press releases (which were republished on major sites), that was then no longer in use (allowing it to be taken over), through to the actual generated output.

When I looked at a letter it generated, it was laughable. The "chat bot" was simply asking questions, and capturing the (verbatim) response, and throwing it straight into the template. No sanity checking, no consistency, etc. There was absolutely no conversational ability in the "chat bot" - it was the equivalent of a "my first program" Hello World app, asking you your name, then greeting you by name.

It wasn't capable of chat, conversation, or comprehension. Anything you entered was blindly copied out into the resulting letter. Seems nothing has changed.

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

#239

Post by asah »

rl3 wrote: post #149
IIAOPSW wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But if we could, would it be entitled to a jury of its peers (other language models)?

> But if we could, would it be entitled to a jury of its peers (other language models)? How does the jury find? Finding is a complex task that involves many different type of reasoning in order to reach a conclusion. There is no specific way we find. How does the jury find? We find the defendant guilty. Your Honor, the defense hereby requests— credits permitting —that the jury be polled ten thousand times each in ord…

That would only work in... Monte Carlo

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

#240

Post by thinkmassive »

tablespoon wrote: post #209
jonstewart wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> One could also argue the real problem is the tech industry constantly ignoring regulations that were put in place for good reasons This is it. The tech company wants the ability to sell a shoddy product to its customers, and the legal system said no. And frankly, I don't know how anyone could honestly claim (without being ignorant or deluded) that feeding legal arguments into court, output from modern-day voice rec…

S’all Good, man! /s
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