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Imagine having a lawyer guided by artificial intelligence to argue or case. Or, better yet, imagine having an AI chatbot trained in all aspects of the law as your advocate. DoNotPay, a legal services chatbot initially built to contest parking tickets, is hoping to make some splash next month when it argues a case in a US court.
Not just that, the founder of DoNotPay, has also put up a unique challenge to lawyers practicing in the US – let the chatbot argue the case, and the company will pay 1 million dollars.
Because programs or AI bots can’t argue a case in front of a US court or anywhere else, mainly because of legal technicalities, DoNotPay will supply appropriate responses through an earpiece to the defendant, who can then use them in the courtroom.
Joshua Browder, the founder of the company, wants to fight a case in the US Supreme Court, similarly, through a proxy. Browder’s idea is to have a lawyer wear a pair of AirPods and let his AI chatbot argue the case. What the proxy needs to do, is repeat exactly what the chatbot says.
Although no lawyer or litigant has taken up DoNotPay’s offer to argue a case in the US Supreme court, one of DoNotPay’s clients has enlisted the service in discussing a minor speeding ticket.
Founded in 2015, DoNotPay is an AI solution aimed at helping individuals fight against large organizations for acts such as applying wrong fees, persistent robocalling, or even fighting parking tickets. According to the company, most of these cases are winnable for individuals. Still, appeals fall by the wayside since defendants cannot afford high legal fees or do not have the time and resources to fight bureaucracy.
DoNotPay’s expertise goes above and beyond speeding tickets, and the program, which costs just $36 a year, could offer a very pocket-friendly option for those who want to fight.
In the upcoming case that it will argue in February, the program will do all the data crunching from past cases to prepare the individual’s defense and even respond to the questions raised in court.
Since this is the AI chatbots’ first case, DoNotPay is ready to take on the burden of punishment if the AI’s advice does not help the client. Since it is a speeding ticket, DoNotPay will pay for the speeding ticket. If it wins, though, it will have a massive victory to its credit.
However, given the challenge that Browder has extended to lawyers or anyone set to appear before the highest court in America, the firm is pretty confident in its abilities to argue and win a case, irrespective of the court it is in.
It should be noted that although the offer may have been made seriously, there is very little chance that any lawyer would accept it. Cases that are fought in front of the Supreme Court have massive ramifications, and no lawyer in their sound mind would risk any case with such stakes to an AI bot.
More importantly, as several users pointed out, lawyers aren’t allowed to carry their smartphones and tablets into the main hall where cases are argued, so it would be impossible for the law firm to carry out what they plan.
