6 ms·

“only a lunatic or a fanatic sues for $30.” A bit off topic here but this is IMHO a great challenge for AI: making a lawyer affordable for the masses when they

by wimgz 9y ago

“only a lunatic or a fanatic sues for $30.” A bit off topic here but this is IMHO a great challenge for AI: making a lawyer affordable for the masses when they are bullied by banks, airlines, etc. If it costs you $5 , why not sue for $30 ?

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
throwaway76543 9y ago
Because the risk of paying litigation expense is in the four, five or six figures. Chasing a return with a potential risk of loss several orders of magnitude higher is insane.
- clavalle 9y ago
  I think the point is that the potential risk starting so high is keeping people from seeking proper justice.
  - throwaway76543 9y ago
    Yes, that is my point
- guntars 9y ago
  It's not if the other side is using AI lawyers, too. Heck, throw in an AI judge and you got yourself very efficient dispute resolution.
will_brown 9y ago
Why not create an AI bank instead so you never suffer the $30 loss anyway? And we could say turn to the blockchain and smart contracts which market themselves as replacements for both real money and real lawyers, but we saw what happens when real techies write the smart contracts (case in point $150M DAO scam and then a fork of the blockchain itself), so we are definitely going to need to replaces software makers and coders with AI too.
- ekidd 9y ago
  And if you could build an AI smart enough to do all that, then it might logically conclude that the one thing all the problems you describe have in common is humans. I don't think there's any simple or easy solution to these problems. They're messy human problems with vested interests, and smart people are going to have to work hard, together, to implement even partial solutions. Government and politics are unpleasant and can go horribly wrong. But I've come to distrust all simplistic answers that begin, "All you need to do is X", whether "X" is "privatize everything" or "invent benevolent AI" or "allow the state to wither away in favor of an enlightened proletariat." No, I think we need to work very hard, be smart, and try to find common ground with as many other people as we can. And if merely sort of works, we should count ourselves lucky.
eli_gottlieb 9y ago
>A bit off topic here but this is IMHO a great challenge for AI: making a lawyer affordable for the masses when they are bullied by banks, airlines, etc. That isn't a great challenge for AI. That's a rotten legal and regulatory system. Why band-aid over society's real problems with software?
- dspillett 9y ago
  If you try to fix the broken system people who take advantage of the bad parts may fight you and/or sneak worse loopholes in (they tend to have the money to lobby hard). If the AI makes it expensive to take advantage of the problem then they'll simply stop doing so. Of course the race will be on to be the first person to work out how to trick the AI, that person could make a boat load before it is fixed or self-corrects.
gnicholas 9y ago
Filing fees alone would swamp the potential benefit, even before attorney's fees are factored in.
yorwba 9y ago
In some cases you don't need to solve any new AI problems, an expert system is enough: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/jun/28/chatbot-ai-lawyer-donotpay-parking-tickets-london-new-york https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/jun/28/chatbot-a...
jemaddux 9y ago
Those are just the costs for you to sue ($5) and potentially what the company will lose ($30). You need to factor in that bringing a court case costs the taxpayer some amount of money as well which is presumably more than $35 to hear the case. The usual way to deal with a $30 fee that wasn't valid in my experience is request a chargeback on your credit card and dare the company to come get it from you. That works often enough that court isn't really necessary IMO.
- dwyerm 9y ago
  That sounds nice, but then they just send the bill to collections, and it becomes a negative entry in your credit report.
  - user5994461 9y ago
    Credit report => another shit thing that doesn't exist in EU.

by wimgz 9y ago

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

throwaway76543 9y ago

Because the risk of paying litigation expense is in the four, five or six figures. Chasing a return with a potential risk of loss several orders of magnitude higher is insane.

clavalle 9y ago
I think the point is that the potential risk starting so high is keeping people from seeking proper justice.
- throwaway76543 9y ago
  Yes, that is my point
guntars 9y ago
It's not if the other side is using AI lawyers, too. Heck, throw in an AI judge and you got yourself very efficient dispute resolution.

will_brown 9y ago

Why not create an AI bank instead so you never suffer the $30 loss anyway? And we could say turn to the blockchain and smart contracts which market themselves as replacements for both real money and real lawyers, but we saw what happens when real techies write the smart contracts (case in point $150M DAO scam and then a fork of the blockchain itself), so we are definitely going to need to replaces software makers and coders with AI too.

ekidd 9y ago
And if you could build an AI smart enough to do all that, then it might logically conclude that the one thing all the problems you describe have in common is humans. I don't think there's any simple or easy solution to these problems. They're messy human problems with vested interests, and smart people are going to have to work hard, together, to implement even partial solutions. Government and politics are unpleasant and can go horribly wrong. But I've come to distrust all simplistic answers that begin, "All you need to do is X", whether "X" is "privatize everything" or "invent benevolent AI" or "allow the state to wither away in favor of an enlightened proletariat." No, I think we need to work very hard, be smart, and try to find common ground with as many other people as we can. And if merely sort of works, we should count ourselves lucky.

eli_gottlieb 9y ago

>A bit off topic here but this is IMHO a great challenge for AI: making a lawyer affordable for the masses when they are bullied by banks, airlines, etc. That isn't a great challenge for AI. That's a rotten legal and regulatory system. Why band-aid over society's real problems with software?

dspillett 9y ago
If you try to fix the broken system people who take advantage of the bad parts may fight you and/or sneak worse loopholes in (they tend to have the money to lobby hard). If the AI makes it expensive to take advantage of the problem then they'll simply stop doing so. Of course the race will be on to be the first person to work out how to trick the AI, that person could make a boat load before it is fixed or self-corrects.

gnicholas 9y ago

Filing fees alone would swamp the potential benefit, even before attorney's fees are factored in.

yorwba 9y ago

In some cases you don't need to solve any new AI problems, an expert system is enough: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/jun/28/chatbot-ai-lawyer-donotpay-parking-tickets-london-new-york https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/jun/28/chatbot-a...

jemaddux 9y ago

Those are just the costs for you to sue ($5) and potentially what the company will lose ($30). You need to factor in that bringing a court case costs the taxpayer some amount of money as well which is presumably more than $35 to hear the case. The usual way to deal with a $30 fee that wasn't valid in my experience is request a chargeback on your credit card and dare the company to come get it from you. That works often enough that court isn't really necessary IMO.

dwyerm 9y ago
That sounds nice, but then they just send the bill to collections, and it becomes a negative entry in your credit report.
- user5994461 9y ago
  Credit report => another shit thing that doesn't exist in EU.