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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
(Score: 2) by Arik on Thursday July 13 2017, @10:56PM
Actually that's one of the problems. There's absolutely no logical reason to think that 39mph is safe but 41mph is unsafe on the same bit of road at the same time. It just doesn't work that way. So what happens is that speed limits are selectively enforced. In many cases that works in favor of sanity (cops are unlikely to pull you for 1mph over, which is a good thing) but it also leads to abuses (out of state plates, beater car, THIS ONE we can pull over for 1mph and roust him if we want.)
Even the law, most places, acknowledges this. There's often verbiage about 'reasonable and prudent for the circumstances' and in many cases the judge can simply throw out speeding tickets where the speed is stipulated and agreed and over limit IF you present what he accepts as a good reason to have done so. And again, that seems almost like a sanity safety release valve, until you consider how it can wind up causing two people guilty of the same behavior to be treated so very differently.
As to the red light cameras, I don't know about Chicago specifically, but in many areas they've introduced them relatively well configured, then quietly changed things once they were accepted. But there have been cases where they've shortened the light sequence for greater revenue, and there are also a lot of complaints about the way right-on-red is handled. It's perfectly legal many places to make a right on red immediately after coming to a stop if the way is clear, yet doing so often results in a ticket being mailed anyway. It's then on you to contest it, with no accuser to confront. Hardly seems like something that a 'justice' system worth of the name would do, does it?
http://abc7chicago.com/news/wrong-on-red-red-light-cameras-rake-in-revenue-for-suburbs/2024820/ (right turns)
https://www.dnainfo.com/chicago/20170320/downtown/red-light-rules-change-as-city-relaxes-time-allowed-run-light (some timing issues)
The thing is, these things are added little by little, at a municipal level, with no consistency. They might be working reasonable in one town and not in the next. It's very hard to find out exactly how each one works and it's very hard to fight their accusations in court. Apply them consistently and openly, so everyone knows how they're working in each case and it can be debated openly and argued in court freely and they might be ok. But that's just not how it's being done.
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?