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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

#341

Post by JumpCrisscross »

ethanbond wrote: post #319
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 1) not being represented, 2) having to pay exorbitant fees to be represented, or 3) having an extremely overworked and disinterested public defender? You’re leaving off being put in jail for contempt of court, perjuring oneself, making procedural errors that result in an adverse default ruling, racking up fines, et cetera . Bad legal representation is ruinous.

Gee good thing everyone in court gets good representation at reasonable prices eh? I get that lawyers think their profession is important (it is) and that by and large they’re positive for their clients (they are), but there are a lot of people who simply do not have access to any worthwhile representation. I saw Spanish-speaking kids sent to juvenile detention for very minor charges conducted in English with no inte…

> lot of people who simply do not have access to any worthwhile representation

They’d be better off representing themselves than trusting a non-lawyer “lawyer” that subpoenas no-show cops. Not another Andreessen-backed cluster.

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

#342

Post by Joker_vD »

mattw2121 wrote: post #176
Joker_vD wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

I assume that the original comment was about how someone can get could pretty much red-handed for battery and assault/home violence but then instead of getting put into pre-trial/provisional detention (yes, you can get locked up even before being judged guilty, outrageous), they are just allowed to go because eh, why bother.

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

#343

Post by Miraste »

jonathanwallace wrote: post #277
lolinder wrote: post #246

This company is either run by someone who doesn't understand the tech or is willfully fraudulent. ChatGPT and company are far from good enough to be entrusted with law. Having interacted extensively with modern LLMs, I absolutely know something like this would happen: > Defendant (as dictated by AI): The Supreme Court ruled in Johnson v. Smith in 1978... > Judge: There was no case Johnson v. Smith in 1978. LLMs hallu…

> there is absolutely no space for hallucination in a court of law I wish you were factually correct here. We've seen time and time again where courts are mockeries of the ideal because of the people in them and the faults they bring with them. E.g. see https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/21pdf/21-418_i425.pdf and the documented proof in the dissent contradicting the claims in the ruling.

That case, to me, is indicative of a larger problem - it's 75 pages of arcane justifications, and yet I already knew how all of the justices had voted just from reading the premise, because like every Supreme Court case in a politicized area it was decided by personal conviction and the rest is post-hoc rationalization.

There is no hallucination on the part of the humans involved, only intellectual dishonesty.

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

#344

Post by rhino369 »

fallingknife wrote: post #292
lolinder wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Non-lawyers aren't banned from giving legal advice because lawyers are trying to protect their jobs, they're banned from giving legal advice because they're likely to be bad at it, and the people who take their advice are likely to be hurt. Yes, in this case, it would just be a parking ticket, but the legal system runs on precedent and it's safer to hold a strict line than to create a fuzzy "well, it depends on how m…

They are not scared that it will fail. They are scared that it will succeed. And there's a great reason to allow a company to sell a stand-in for a lawyer. Cost. This isn't targeted at people who can afford lawyers, it's targeted at people who can't, for now at least.

>They are not scared that it will fail. They are scared that it will succeed.

Not really. There are more lawyers than legal jobs. A lot of lawyers are toiling for well under 100k a year. People pay 1500 dollars an hour for some lawyers and 150 an hour for others due to perceived (and actual) quality differences. Adding a bunch more non-lawyers isn't going to impact the demand for the 1500 dollars an hour lawyers.

Legal work is expensive because ANY sort of bespoke professional work is expensive. Imagine if software developers had to customize their work for each customer.

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

#345

Post by patentatt »

lbriner wrote: post #335
lolinder wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not so much concerned about precision of language (although that does matter in some contexts) as I am in precision of facts and precedence.

This shows how little experience you have of the legal system. Everyone who doesn't know expects the law to be precise, everyone who works in it knows how imprecise it is and sometimes that is deliberate because of all the variables involved that might mitigate or aggrevate the charge, assuming there even is a charge. The difference between tax evasion and tax avoidance might be the smallest proveable piece of eviden…

Sure, but citing a non-existent case would be clearly wrong. That was the hypothetical the post above gave.

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

#346

Post by 988747 »

giantg2 wrote: post #257
ajmurmann wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The funny thing is that doctors would be the canonical examples for most people. Yet, there is no license that stops a pediatrician from performing brain surgery. What stops the pediatrician from performing brain surgery is that no hospital would hire them as a brain surgeon, no insurance would insure their brain surgery and if something goes wrong they'd likely face a lawsuit they couldn't win. Why is the system abl…

The answer is in your question. It's the credentialing. The pediatrician lacks the credentials of a neurosurgeon. Just as non-doctors lack the credentials to work as a doctor. The hosptial, insurance, and court would all be looking at the credentials.

Credentials are not the same as license. For example, software engineers do not need to pass any certification exams to practice software engineering, but companies still look at their education, years of experience, etc... Yes, it would make a recruitment process for doctors longer, as you would have to interview them, ask them questions to verify their medical knowledge, etc., but it is not impossible.

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

#347

Post by JumpCrisscross »

ethanbond wrote: post #338
notahacker wrote: post #330

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, not contesting the ticket is likely to be a better option than delegating your chances of not being convicted of contempt of court or perjury to the truthfulness and legal understanding of an LLM...

Sure if your objective is to minimize your own personal exposure. If your goal is to push toward a world where poor folks aren’t coerced into not contesting their tickets because they can’t afford to go to court or get representation, then maybe it is a good option.

> goal is to push toward a world where poor folks aren’t coerced into not contesting their tickets

Invest in a company doing this properly and not pushing half-baked frauds into the world. Supervised learning, mock trials. You’re proposing turning those poor folk into Guinea pigs, gambling with their freedom from afar.

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

#348

Post by squarefoot »

sh4rks wrote: post #174
autoexec wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Open Source and disconnected. AI is a wonderful tool that will turn into a nightmare when used to take advantage of people. I wouldn't want my "pocket lawyer" to send our private conversations anywhere but my personal offline space. The risk that someone with vested interests and enough funds could bribe their access to that data, if not directly to the AI, is simply too high. Unfortunately it seems that trustworthy AI is not going to happen anytime soon: there's simply too much money to make renting it as a service, hence online and closed.

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

#349

Post by ethanbond »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #341
ethanbond wrote: post #319

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gee good thing everyone in court gets good representation at reasonable prices eh? I get that lawyers think their profession is important (it is) and that by and large they’re positive for their clients (they are), but there are a lot of people who simply do not have access to any worthwhile representation. I saw Spanish-speaking kids sent to juvenile detention for very minor charges conducted in English with no inte…

> lot of people who simply do not have access to any worthwhile representation They’d be better off representing themselves than trusting a non-lawyer “lawyer” that subpoenas no-show cops. Not another Andreessen-backed cluster.

Do you know that? How do you know that’s what the model would do? How do you know that the defendant doesn’t have an 80 IQ and an elementary school grasp on English? Do you think this doesn’t happen today and that these people don’t get absolutely dragged by the system?

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

#350

Post by [deleted] »

ethanbond wrote: post #349
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #341

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> lot of people who simply do not have access to any worthwhile representation They’d be better off representing themselves than trusting a non-lawyer “lawyer” that subpoenas no-show cops. Not another Andreessen-backed cluster.

Do you know that? How do you know that’s what the model would do? How do you know that the defendant doesn’t have an 80 IQ and an elementary school grasp on English? Do you think this doesn’t happen today and that these people don’t get absolutely dragged by the system?

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