Prison threat prevents AI ‘robot lawyer’ from making courtroom debut

Joshua Browder, CEO of New York startup DoNotPay, recently said that his company’s AI defend the accused February 22 Fighting traffic tickets in court. “[H]Browder wrote in his tweet: DoNotPay AI will whisper in someone’s ear exactly what to say. We will publish the results and share more after we publish the results,” he added. However, a few days later Browder announced that DoNotPay is adjourning the court case, so there’s no telling what the “robot lawyer” will do in court. If he carried out the plan he was threatened with imprisonment by state bar association prosecutors.

the CEO said NPR Several state bar associations have threatened his firm, and one lawyer said he could face up to six months in prison. “Even if it didn’t, it was enough to give up the threat of criminal charges,” he told the press. “The letters were so infrequent that we thought we were just getting in the way and we had to move on.” The State Bar of California declined to comment on DoNoPay’s situation, but NPR We have a duty to investigate potential instances of unauthorized legal practice.

Browder originally created DoNoPay as a free AI-powered chatbot that helps you draft letters and fill out forms for a variety of legal matters. The company’s “robot lawyer” is powered by several AI text generators, including ChatGPT and DaVinci, which have been retrained to know the law. A defendant using this technology in a court of law would not only wear smart glasses to record the court proceedings, but also a headset that would give the AI ​​a way to say what it had to say.

together CBS News However, a previous report said the technology is not legal in most courts. Also, some states require all parties to consent to the recording. This is why only 2 out of 300 cases that DoNotPay looked at are viable candidates. Eventually, Browder decided to defer the company’s court ambitions and focus on using AI to solve issues related to consumer rights, particularly lowering medical bills, subscription cancellations, and credit report disputes.

NPR But the CEO said he still hopes artificial intelligence can eventually help people in court. “In fact, most people can’t afford to hire a lawyer. This would have changed the balance and made tools like ChatGPT available in court that can help people win their case,” he told the organization. .