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posted by Fnord666 on Thursday July 13 2017, @12:43PM   Printer-friendly
from the queue-the-lawyer-jokes-in-3-2-1 dept.

A chatbot-"ai"-lawyer keeps filing appeals against parking tickets and similar minor offenses. The author claims it has defeated an estimated 375,000 parking tickets by now -- defeated or appealed? Is every appeal a sure win with this bot-created-paperwork? Do people even contact lawyers to fight parking tickets? Isn't the lawyer fee almost always going to be higher than the fine? Sure, it might be about the good fight and standing up for what is right, etc. but still.

After reading the story I'm still unsure what the actual AI part of the chatbot is, it seems to just be one big decision-tree. But I guess that doesn't get as much press as claiming you have invented a lawyer-AI.

https://www.theverge.com/2017/7/12/15960080/chatbot-ai-legal-donotpay-us-uk


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  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Zinho on Thursday July 13 2017, @01:55PM

    by Zinho (759) on Thursday July 13 2017, @01:55PM (#538686)

    But it's not a "lawyer" any more than LegalZoom is. It can guide you to documents that were written by lawyers and paralegals that probably are better than what you can write from scratch as a non-expert.

    Exactly. The most important point made in this article is that you sign the documents yourself; it is not the bot nor any legal firm signing for you as your representative. I'm sure that if the bot were signing as your lawyer that there would be sharp questions directed from various state Bar associations. When a real Artificial Intelligence ever gets smart enough to pass the Bar exam I'll be breaking out the popcorn while watching the fireworks.

    I have to wonder now whether the bot logs its interactions or not. Since the bot isn't actually an attorney I don't expect there to be attorney-client privilege to anything you share with it, and any records it keeps would be subject to discovery via subpoena (at least in the U.S.). Probably not a problem as long as it's restricting itself to parking and speeding tickets.

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