The first time an AI bot will counsel the defendant during a court proceeding is rumoured to occur in February. According to a rumor, the first robot lawyer in the world will operate on the defendant’s smartphone using an app named “DoNotPay” and listen to courtroom proceedings in real-time while directing the defendant’s speech through an earpiece.
The robot lawyer’s creators are keeping the location of the court and the identity of the defendant a secret, but the hearing is scheduled to happen sometime next month.
The idea for a robot lawyer originated from the California-based startup DoNotPay, which Joshua Browder, a computer scientist at Stanford University, founded in 2015 to challenge parking tickets. In order to help people who are dealing with late fees, fines, and parking citations, Joshua Browder created the DoNotPay chatbot in 2015. However, in 2020, the company made the switch to artificial intelligence.
Since its release, the software has spread throughout the UK and the US, assisting users with a variety of letter-writing tasks, including those related to insurance claims, letters of complaint to local governments or businesses, applications for visas, and more. According to Joshua Browder, the epidemic caused a huge increase in DoNotPay usage. DoNotPay now states that it has about 150,000 paying subscribers.
DoNotPay: A path to justice?
Customers can join DoNotPay on a yearly membership for $36 if they want to appeal a ticket, obtain a refund, or battle spam calls. After registering, a user can use DoNotPay’s AI-powered chatbot to dispute their claim.
Here’s how to accomplish that:
- Enter some basic data, such as the particular problem you want to raise.
- DoNotPay turns such data into a legal document by processing it with artificial intelligence.
- DoNotPay may present information as either an official notarized legal petition or a written email depending on the situation.
- DoNotPay employs AI to respond to criticisms or arguments.
Sally Hobson, a barrister at a law business with offices in London, is one such attorney who recently used an AI in a difficult murder trial. A case analysis of over 10,000 documents was conducted. The task was completed four weeks quicker by the program than by humans, saving about £50,000. The software was developed by Eleanor Weaver, the CEO of Luminance. Since Luminance is provided in 80 different languages, it is used by over 300 law firms across 55 different nations.
AI robots raise ethical issues
The risk of an error or unexpected behavior in the near future remains, even though there are currently no reports of lawful AI bots acting in an unexpected way. Additionally, since AI bots cannot be sued, defining responsibility and payment will be more difficult.
