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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

#621

Post by john_the_writer »

Forgeties79 wrote: post #532
danShumway wrote: post #503

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Does anyone else have a better explanation for why there was such a visceral response? I can't speak for lawyers in general or what everyone's motivations would be, but my initial reaction was that it seemed like a somewhat unethical experiment. I assume the client would have agreed or represented themselves, but even there -- legal advice is tricky because it's advice -- it feels unethical to tell a person to rely…

Yeah I feel like you're right on the money on re: the ethics of using someone who is in legal trouble who will have to live with the results. It's not as sexy but they should just build a fake case (or just use an already settled one if possible) and play out the scenario. No reason it wouldn't be just as effective as a "real" case.

It's about volume. A fake case would be expensive to run and running dozens of them a day would be hard.

That said. The consequence of most traffic tickets is increased insurance and a fine. Yes these do have an impact on the accused, but they are the least impactful legal cases, so it would make sense to focus on them as test cases.

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

#622

Post by john_the_writer »

marmetio wrote: post #509
jchw wrote: post #478

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty sure the whole reason why DoNotPay actually exists is because defending against parking tickets didn't actually require a strong defense. The tickets were flawed automation, and their formulaic nature justified and equally formulaic response, or something to that effect. Whether the LLM was actually going to output answers directly, or just be used to drive a behavior tree or something like that, is a question…

The specific scenario doesn't matter. It's illegal to represent someone else in court if you're not a lawyer. There are a lot of things that you can't get a second chance at if your lawyer messes up that suing them can't fix. Lawyers and judges also negotiate, which a machine can't do because nobody feels an obligation to cut them some slack. Also now you're tainting case law with machine-generated garbage. Everythin…

The tricky bit about your comment. "If you're not a lawyer." In this case who's the "You're".

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

#623

Post by 2muchcoffeeman »

jchw wrote: post #478
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…

Pretty sure the whole reason why DoNotPay actually exists is because defending against parking tickets didn't actually require a strong defense. The tickets were flawed automation, and their formulaic nature justified and equally formulaic response, or something to that effect. Whether the LLM was actually going to output answers directly, or just be used to drive a behavior tree or something like that, is a question…

>That said, if it's such a catastrophically stupid idea, I'm not really sure why it had to be shot down so harshly

The title of the article seems misleading.

A techbro who doesn't appear to be a lawyer or has any understanding of the law wants to use AI so people can defend themselves. It doesn't seem like any of this was done with input from any bar associations. Without seeing the emails and "threats", and ignoring the emotional language it sounds like these people were helping him out:

>"In particular, Browder said one state bar official noted that the unauthorized practice of law is a misdemeanor in some states punishable up to six months in county jail."

Were these emails "angry" or just stating very plainly and with forceful language, that if you do this without the AI having the appropriate qualifications, you are most probably going to jail?

It even sounds like Browder didn't really widely publicise the fact that a case defended by an AI was about to happen.

>As word got out, an uneasy buzz began to swirl among various state bar officials, according to Browder. He says angry letters began to pour in.

Really sounds like these letter writers did him a favour.

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

#625

Post by jfk13 »

LarryMullins wrote: post #592
jfk13 wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Misleading. That report discusses "medical errors", not "medical malpractice". They are not the same thing.

Po ta to, pota to . Getting killed by a doctor fucking up is the third leading cause of death in America and doctors VERY RARELY ever face consequences for this.

Doctors -- and the wider medical systems they're part of -- are certainly not perfect. I think there are issues with the American health system (if it's even meaningful to refer to "a system" there) that are crying out for reform and improvement.

But your sort of inflammatory comments are neither accurate nor helpful. That's just mud-slinging to try and score cheap points.

[Edited to add:] To quote from your own link above:

> The researchers caution that most of medical errors aren’t due to inherently bad doctors, and that reporting these errors shouldn’t be addressed by punishment or legal action. Rather, they say, most errors represent systemic problems, including poorly coordinated care, fragmented insurance networks, the absence or underuse of safety nets, and other protocols, in addition to unwarranted variation in physician practice patterns that lack accountability.

IMO, "killed by a doctor fucking up" is not a fair summary of that.

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

#626

Post by freitzkriesler »

samtp wrote: post #587
freitzkriesler wrote: post #578

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know which is probably why this was a proof of concept with what would have been abysmal results.

This sentiment seems to be completely at odds with your first comment.

Mate I'm not stupid. It was a proof of concept and even if the end result was going to be a spectacular failure, it doesn't exclude the fact that the bar associations are desperately trying to fight this tooth and nail.

Learn to read between the lines, not everything is an IDE.

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

#627

Post by intrasight »

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…

>absolute precision is required

LOL - you gotta be kidding. In software, we strive for that - by running tests. In the law, there are no tests.

Not saying that absolute precision isn't required. I know lots of cases were an extra comma, a wrong date, or a signature from the wrong person has cost someone tens of millions of dollars. I would argue that AI-based tools could prevent such HUMAN mistakes.

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

#628

Post by john_the_writer »

fatbird wrote: post #488
jchw wrote: post #478

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pretty sure the whole reason why DoNotPay actually exists is because defending against parking tickets didn't actually require a strong defense. The tickets were flawed automation, and their formulaic nature justified and equally formulaic response, or something to that effect. Whether the LLM was actually going to output answers directly, or just be used to drive a behavior tree or something like that, is a question…

It had to be shot down harshly because there are some premises to a courtroom proceeding that aren't met by an AI as we currently have. One of those is that the lawyer arguing a case is properly credentialed and has been admitted to the bar, and is a professional subject to malpractice standards, who can be held responsible for their performance. An AI spitting out statistically likely responses can't be considered a…

I don't understand the "cites a non-existent precedent" bit. Presumably the AI would have a database of a pile of precedent. It wouldn't make up cites. It would have "knowledge" of so much precedence, it could likely find something to win either side of the argument.

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

#629

Post by squokko »

intrasight wrote: post #542
danShumway wrote: post #503

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Does anyone else have a better explanation for why there was such a visceral response? I can't speak for lawyers in general or what everyone's motivations would be, but my initial reaction was that it seemed like a somewhat unethical experiment. I assume the client would have agreed or represented themselves, but even there -- legal advice is tricky because it's advice -- it feels unethical to tell a person to rely…

From what I've read recently, the legal profession is the one most at risk of adverse financial effects from AI. Not the court appearances nor the specialized work. But the run-of-the-mill boilerplate legal writing that is the bread and butter profit center of most first. You bet they are threatened and will push back. Now the question is this. If an AI is doing something illegal like practicing law, how does one san…

The legal profession is at the least risk of adverse financial effects from anything, because the people who make the laws are largely lawyers, and will shape the law to their advantage.

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

#630

Post by john_the_writer »

dragonwriter wrote: post #607
bluGill wrote: post #522

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fact checking an AI is still massively easier than finding and reading all the precedent yourself. Real lawyers of course already know the important precedent in the areas they deal in, and they still have teams behind the scene to search out more that might apply, and then only read the ones the team says look important. Of course there could be a difference between an reading all the cases an AI says are important…

> Fact checking an AI is still massively easier than finding and reading all the precedent yourself. Actually fact-checking an AI requires finding and reading all the precedent yourself to verify that the AI has both cited accurately and not missed contradictory precedent that is more relevant (whether newer, from a higher court, or more specifically on-point.) If it has got an established track record, just as with…

What do you mean "finding"? The AI would just return links or raw text of the cases. Reading the findings would be the same as reading any precedence. But the AI could weight the results, and you'd only have to read the high scoring results. If the AI got it wrong, you'd just refine the search and the AI would be trained.

To the cost. If it removed the need for one legal assistant or associate then anything less than the cost of employing said person would be profit. So if it cost < 50k a year you'd be saving. (cost of employing is more than just salary)

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