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DoNotPay has to pay $193K for falsely touting untested AI lawyer, FTC says

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181–190 of 218 posts

Re: DoNotPay has to pay $193K for falsely touting untested AI lawyer, FTC says

#181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Too bad that the legal system is made of lawyers, whose interests run directly contrary to that ideal.

Legal systems becoming complex predates the emergence of lawyers. Lawyers have also led significant efforts to simplify the law. For example the American Bar Association has consistently created simple model statute frameworks that eventually are adopted. Law is complex because society is complex.

> For example the American Bar Association has consistently created simple model statute frameworks that eventually are adopted.

"Simple" is not an accurate description of typical model legislation.

> Law is complex because society is complex.

Law is complex because it's an evolved system influenced by politics and corruption. The extent of its complexity is not intrinsic and much of it is specifically a defense mechanism against public understanding, because the public wouldn't support many things in the status quo if they understood the workings of them, and the people who do understand the workings but prefer the status quo use this to their advantage.

Re: DoNotPay has to pay $193K for falsely touting untested AI lawyer, FTC says

#182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The purpose of a business is always to maximize profit. That's false. The purpose of a business is whatever the owners of that business decide. I've known a large number of business owners that chose less profit in exchange for any number of other attributes they valued more than max profit: more of their own time (working less), better serving a local community by donating a lot of resources / air time (media comp…

A majority of the shares in most publicly traded corporations are held by retirement funds, both "private" (BlackRock, Vanguard, State Street) and public (FERS, CalPERS, ...). These entities, generally, have no appreciable interest other than maximizing profit. They are all regulated financial entities, even the private ones are quasi-governmental (e.g., BlackRock has close business relationships with the Federal Res…

But then you have to make a different statement. The purpose of a large, publicly traded for-profit corporation is to maximize profit.

This is quite an important distinction because it implies we may want to limit the prevalence of those things and increase the prevalence of small businesses and privately-held medium businesses that can advance other societal goals.

Re: DoNotPay has to pay $193K for falsely touting untested AI lawyer, FTC says

#183
post #128
post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ideally the legal system wouldn't be byzantine and prohibitively expensive for mere mortals to engage with.

I think the same could be said software engineers. I don't engage with the general public about writing people's next brilliant idea because it's a hige waste of my time when I could be making FAANG bucks talking to people who know that I'm worth it. While I will alwatry to explain to my mom how the internet works etc, it's not economically justifiable to engage laymen tonsolve their probno matter how altruistic it m…

I don't think anyone would argue that lawyers shouldn't get paid for their time, but in many cases their rates are excessive. When people's rights and freedom are at risk the cost should never be a barrier that most people can't afford to clear.

Re: DoNotPay has to pay $193K for falsely touting untested AI lawyer, FTC says

#184
post #4

> DoNotPay also did not "hire or retain any attorneys" to help verify AI outputs or validate DoNotPay's legal claims. Wow, that's brave. Create a wrapper around ChatGPT, call it a lawyer, and never check the output. $193k fine seems like peanuts. Sometimes I think about where I would be in life if I had no moral or ethical qualms. I'd probably be running a company like this.

> Sometimes I think about where I would be in life if I had no moral or ethical qualms. I'd probably be running a company like this.

And that's why you're not a criminal. This is a criminal act and approved and implemented by criminals. Main thing is in the US it usually pays to do white collar crime as long as it's not too big or too embarassing to politicians.

Re: DoNotPay has to pay $193K for falsely touting untested AI lawyer, FTC says

#185
post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you'll find elevator attendance errors rather cheaper.

Typical lawyer mistake versus an elevator mistake? Depends on the nature of each mistake. Elevator accidents can be serious.

We're talking about the guy that presses the buttons for the people taking the elevator, yes? What serious elevator accident might arise from that?

Re: DoNotPay has to pay $193K for falsely touting untested AI lawyer, FTC says

#186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Legal systems becoming complex predates the emergence of lawyers. Lawyers have also led significant efforts to simplify the law. For example the American Bar Association has consistently created simple model statute frameworks that eventually are adopted. Law is complex because society is complex.

> For example the American Bar Association has consistently created simple model statute frameworks that eventually are adopted. "Simple" is not an accurate description of typical model legislation. > Law is complex because society is complex. Law is complex because it's an evolved system influenced by politics and corruption. The extent of its complexity is not intrinsic and much of it is specifically a defense mech…

Your description is not consistent with history. Politics and corruption are not outsized drivers of law. Especially case law built through the courts. It’s all edge cases.

Try the example of drafting a standard apartment lease, over millions of transactions between landlords and tenants lots of edge cases emerge. So over time leases get more complicated. And then the law around interpretation and enforcement gets complicated.

Re: DoNotPay has to pay $193K for falsely touting untested AI lawyer, FTC says

#187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, need some way to image each new brain that comes online with some basics so it's not starting from 0 each time (and what basics to include would be a battle for the ages)

Oof, no thanks. Part of our resilience comes from each generation observing and learning what the world actually is without all of the dogma from the previous generation. Instilling a set of basics is probably the worst thing we could do to fight against gaming humanity.

I was more thinking (but didn't express) human history, not "do's and don'ts" but "this happened, draw your own conclusions".

Re: DoNotPay has to pay $193K for falsely touting untested AI lawyer, FTC says

#188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Legal systems becoming complex predates the emergence of lawyers. Lawyers have also led significant efforts to simplify the law. For example the American Bar Association has consistently created simple model statute frameworks that eventually are adopted. Law is complex because society is complex.

> For example the American Bar Association has consistently created simple model statute frameworks that eventually are adopted. "Simple" is not an accurate description of typical model legislation. > Law is complex because society is complex. Law is complex because it's an evolved system influenced by politics and corruption. The extent of its complexity is not intrinsic and much of it is specifically a defense mech…

"Politics and corruption" is exactly what is complex about society, and it is absolutely intristic to society. That's why we have laws in the first place.

> because the public wouldn't support many things in the status quo if they understood the workings of them

Personally, I've observed the opposite more often: somebody feeds the public a clickbait-ey and manipulative "explanation" of how things work, and public becomes enraged without any real understanding of complexities and trade-offs of the system, as well as unintended consequences of proposed "fixes". It is the main reason why socialism is a thing.

Re: DoNotPay has to pay $193K for falsely touting untested AI lawyer, FTC says

#189
post #4

> DoNotPay also did not "hire or retain any attorneys" to help verify AI outputs or validate DoNotPay's legal claims. Wow, that's brave. Create a wrapper around ChatGPT, call it a lawyer, and never check the output. $193k fine seems like peanuts. Sometimes I think about where I would be in life if I had no moral or ethical qualms. I'd probably be running a company like this.

lmao at least the should have finetuned gpt4
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