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The first AI lawyer failed to go to court, but it was just an episode in which AI changed the legal profession.

Author | Lingzi County Editor | Zheng Xuan

Lawyer AI's first attempt to enter the courtroom was forced to press the "pause button".

The ontology of the so-called "AI lawyer" is the latest version of the chat robot developed by DoNotPay. According to the original plan, the defendant appeared in court wearing headphones carrying the AI robot, who listened to the court in real time, translated the reply to the defendant simultaneously, and told him how to plead with the judge. After the company announced the plan in early January, peer questions and legal risk warnings came along, and under great pressure, they made the decision to give up.

DoNotPay is an APP that uses AI technology to provide legal services for ordinary people. Founded by Joshua Browder in 2015, the company has raised nearly $28 million. The last round of financing, led by A16Z, raised $10 million in 2021, valuing the company at $210 million.

Initially, the App only provided the ability to automatically write complaints after being assigned a parking ticket. Over the past few years, it has expanded the service scene to personal taxation, credit score maintenance, subscription refund and other matters.

The progress of the language model and the update of ChatGPT have also brought more upgrades to DoNotpay's chatbot. It can now act as an agent for consumers, go to the dialog box to negotiate the problems in the online package and strive for a refund. Although the refund of US $10 or US $15 is not much, it saves time and worries to fight for the rights and interests of consumers. Although "AI lawyer" is excluded from the court, it will increasingly help ordinary people in the broader context of life.

The AI lawyer's attempt to enter the court also means that the technology has begun to conflict with the original legal system. In the legal field, AI has been a tool for lawyers for some time, and recently some judges have even used AIGC to optimize their judgment statements.

But when AI began to provide legal services to ordinary people and tried to enter the preliminary trial, it seemed to face more resistance, and even led to a discussion about the compliance of AI legal services. Today's court rules and regulatory system are no longer sufficient to cope with the ever-changing technological advances.

01. In Zhang Yang's experiment, the suspended "AI lawyer" was announced and withdrawn, and the first human "AI lawyer to appear in court" was aborted in only 20 days.

On January 4, Joshua Browder disclosed to the media the news that AI's lawyer would appear in court. The original plan was to give real-time assistance to the defendant through the handset at a California District Court hearing on February 22nd with a "AI lawyer" hidden in a pair of headphones.

DoNotPay founder Joshua Browder | Source: the stanford daily defendant is accused of speeding, "AI lawyer" will be hidden in a Bluetooth headset, the real-time recording of the court will be transmitted to the algorithm, and AI will judge how to deal with the judge based on the recording at the scene, whispering in the defendant's ear, real-time guidance.

It is reported that DoNotPay reached an agreement with the defendant that the defendant would only respond to the advice received from "AI lawyer" and repeat it to a judge who did not know about it. If this results in an increase in the fine, it will be paid by the company. The purpose of this is to test the effectiveness of AI lawyers. According to Browder, the technology behind AI, which makes instant response at the trial, is GPT-3, the large language model of OpenAI.

The news soon spread in the media, and Joshua Browder took the opportunity to launch a new public recruitment on Twitter: for a case to be heard in the U.S. Supreme Court, the company is willing to pay any lawyer or individual $1 million to wear AirPods headphones and repeat what AI lawyer said to defend the case. However, this behavior was questioned by netizens, and according to the relevant law, the Supreme Court of the United States forbids the introduction and use of any electronic devices during the session.

But in local courts in the United States, some states are more lenient about whether to bring electronics to court. For example, some local courts allow defendants to use hearing aids with Bluetooth, and DoNotPay is tantamount to playing on the sidelines. "it's technically in line with the rules, but I don't think it's in line with the spirit of the rules. "Browder said.

Another concern is that AI listens to the court in real time through headphones, and even if the data is destroyed immediately after analysis and processing, it constitutes recording, which is prohibited in any court.

Unsurprisingly, the plan was vehemently opposed by the Bar Association. Browder said he was receiving threats from several state bar associations. "one party even said it was possible to transfer the case to the local prosecutor's office and sue for imprisonment. Another State Bar Association official pointed out that in some states, unauthorized legal work is a misdemeanor punishable by up to six months in prison.

Faced with the risk of breaking the law and pressure from the Bar Association, Browder decided to give up, and on January 26th he announced the suspension of plans to bring AI lawyers to court.

02. From the appeal ticket to "Internet Robin Hood" opening DoNotPay's web page, there is a clear-cut slogan: the world's first lawyer robot. The introduction below reads: crack down on business, crack down on bureaucracy, and sue anyone at the click of a button.

DoNotPay is simply a chat robot that provides legal services. It can help you better negotiate with regulations and agreements and defend your rights in daily situations. For example, filing tax returns to the IRS, appealing for tickets, writing wills, unsubscribing services, etc. In these specific situations, the chatbot will ask you some questions to get basic information, and then assist you in writing the form or paper.

Browder describes: people can express their opinions in their own words, and software with machine learning models can be matched with legally correct expressions.

In 2020, the company also received a Brown Award from the legal Services Committee of the American Bar Association in recognition of its promotion and innovation in popularizing legal services through technical means.

Although the company is seven years old, its founder Browder is only 26 years old. It all started when he became a novice driver in his sophomore year when he was given a series of illegal parking tickets. According to the local regulations, he can write a letter to defend himself. In some cases, such as unclear signs and insufficient photo evidence, the ticket may be revoked.

Browder found that such templated writing was easy to automate, and DoNotPay, which automatically wrote ticket complaints, was born. So far, DoNotPay has helped users draft 250000 ticket complaints.

Later, DoNotPay continued to expand its ability to handle all kinds of things. The company says chatbots have won more than 2 million customer service disputes and court lawsuits against institutions and organizations on behalf of people, including the cancellation of 300000 subscriptions.

Browder also announces the latest features on Twitter from time to time. For example, after ChatGPT opened API, DoNotPay launched a new feature that reads terms, leases, and then marks non-standard content-details that may have pitfalls.

Equipped with the capabilities of ChatGPT, DoNotPay can continue to upgrade. In a demo video, the user only needs to issue the command to "reduce Internet fees, but maintain the existing package," and the rest can be handed over to the robot. The DoNotPay robot talks directly to the customer service robot of the communication operator. It listed service problems with operators and threatened legal action, and in the end, the customer service robot offered a $10 monthly deduction from the Internet bill. In other words, the robot agent helps users reduce costs by $120 a year.

Also because of this product positioning for consumer rights, BBC previously described DoNotPay as an "Internet Robin Hood."

DoNotPay negotiates network fee with customer service robot instead of human user | Source: Joshua Browder

03. The prospect of AI: the gap in legal services, from automatically writing ticket complaints, negotiating package fees, to bringing "AI assistants" to court to assist in court arguments, is actually an extension of the scene of using technology to provide legal services. DoNotPay's attempt is also a natural derivation of its service traffic ticket scenario.

If you choose to appeal after receiving a speeding ticket, you may need to go to trial in addition to a written complaint. Trials such as speeding are generally not too complicated and there is no need to hire a professional lawyer, but ordinary people do not have the legal knowledge necessary for court defense.

Despite the opposition of some bar associations, some professionals say that such an idea has its application prospects. Henshon, chairman of the artificial Intelligence and Robotics Committee of the American Bar Association, holds this view. In his view, in low-risk cases, the AI consultant could provide legal aid, otherwise the defendant might not have legal representation in the trial. "there are a lot of legal mistakes that have not been corrected because it is not worth the intervention of lawyers," Henshon said.

AI has entered the legal industry as a tool, mainly for quick review of a large number of documents. Sally Hobson, a barrister at a London law firm, used AI software to help quickly analyze more than 10, 000 documents in a complex murder. The speed of the software is four weeks faster than that of manpower, saving 50000 pounds.

This is different from the nature of the services provided by AI lawyers to ordinary people, and AI acts as a tool for professionals. When AI provides legal aid to ordinary people, on the one hand, it fills the gap in the existing legal services, on the other hand, it involves issues such as professional qualification, how to regulate and so on. Leah Wilson, executive director of the California Bar Association, said, "by 2023, we will see an influx of well-funded, unregulated service providers into the low-cost legal agency market, which once again raises the question of whether and how to regulate these services. "

With such publicity about the "AI lawyer into the courtroom" experiment, Browder also hopes to promote policy and regulatory discussions. He said that there are still many parts to be addressed, but also related to communication with the government, "there are a lot of problems to be solved, technology is not the most difficult part, compliance is still in the process." He believes that court rules are out of date in the face of technological progress.

More broadly, Browder believes that AI is shaking the tools and rules that determine the balance of power between individuals, governments and businesses. He sees AI as a way of empowering ordinary individuals, creating a level playing field for people in fines and fee disputes.

However, after the "AI lawyer in court" plan was shelved, he said that in terms of the company's product strategy, extending the function to the court scene may not be an appropriate strategy and will focus on consumer rights in the future. "No lawyer will get up for a refund of $500. This is what we should really pay attention to. At present, it seems that the tiny rights protection scenario is the advantage of AI services over human lawyers.

This article is from the official account of Wechat: geek Park (ID:geekpark), author: Lingzi County

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