5 ms·

If this is the case, the lawyers should have nothing to fear, and the plaintiff nothing to lose but a parking ticket. I say we stop arguing and run the experime

by gfodor 4y ago

If this is the case, the lawyers should have nothing to fear, and the plaintiff nothing to lose but a parking ticket. I say we stop arguing and run the experiment.

lolinder 4y ago
Non-lawyers aren't banned from giving legal advice because lawyers are trying to protect their jobs, they're banned from giving legal advice because they're likely to be bad at it, and the people who take their advice are likely to be hurt. Yes, in this case, it would just be a parking ticket, but the legal system runs on precedent and it's safer to hold a strict line than to create a fuzzy "well, it depends on how much is at stake" line. If we know that ChatGPT is not equipped to give legal advice in the general case, there's no reason to allow a company to sell it as a stand-in for a lawyer. (I would feel differently about a defendant deciding to use the free ChatGPT in this way, because they would be deliberately ignoring the warnings ChatGPT gives. It's the fact that someone decided to make selling AI legal advice into a business model that makes it troubling.)
- enraged_camel 4y ago
  >> Non-lawyers aren't banned from giving legal advice because lawyers are trying to protect their jobs, they're banned from giving legal advice because they're likely to be bad at it, and the people who take their advice are likely to be hurt. But why would the opposing side's lawyers care about this? They presumably want their client to win the lawsuit.
  - greiskul 4y ago
    Well, it is supposed to be a Justice system, and not a game. While it is very easy to forget that, and many of the participants in it clearly don't behave as such, the outcome of it should be to be just.
  - freejazz 4y ago
    When did the opposing side's lawyers say anything about this? Are you confused? Law is a regulated profession. The lawyers pointing out that this is illegal aren't on the other side of the case...
  - matthewheath 4y ago
    I only have immediate knowledge of UK law, but lawyers will generally have a duty to the court to act with independence in the interests of justice. This tends to mean that in situations where one side are self-represented or using the services of ChatGPT, etc. the opposing side is under a duty not to take unfair advantage of the fact that one side is not legally trained. They don't have to help them, but they can't act abusively by, for example, exploiting lack of procedural knowledge. If they deliberately took advantage of one side using ChatGPT and getting it wrong because the legal foundation of knowledge isn't there for that person, that could be a breach of their duty to the court and result in professional censure or other regulatory consequences.
  - gameman144 4y ago
    Incompetent representation is grounds for a mistrial, or successful appeal. The prosecution wants to win, but they'd prefer to only have to win once. If you have to go back to trial, you've already showed your hand, and the defense (who is now competent) can adapt to it.
- fallingknife 4y ago
  They are not scared that it will fail. They are scared that it will succeed. And there's a great reason to allow a company to sell a stand-in for a lawyer. Cost. This isn't targeted at people who can afford lawyers, it's targeted at people who can't, for now at least.
  - freejazz 4y ago
    Lawyers aren't scared at all. It's traffic court, you are really overstating things. If it was a serious case, it'd be even more ridiculous to put more on the line by being represented by a computer algorithm that isn't subject to any of the licensing standards of an atty, none of the repercussions, and being run by a business that is disclaiming all liability for their conduct. You know what an attorney can't do? Disclaim malpractice liability! It'd be wondrous if the esteemed minds of hackernews could put their brain cycles towards actually applying common sense and other things rather than jerking off to edgy narratives about disruption while completely disregarding the relevant facts to focus on what they find politically juicy ("lawyers are scared it will succeed". It's a tautological narrative you are weaving for yourself that completely skirts past all the principles underlying the legal profession and it's development over hundreds of years.
  - JumpCrisscross 4y ago
    > are not scared that it will fail. They are scared that it will succeed Lawyers make heavy use of automated document sifting in e.g. e-discovery. Junior lawyers are expensive. Tech that makes them superfluous is a boon to partners. When we toss the village drunk from the bar, it isn’t because we’re scared they’ll drink all the booze.
  - NoboruWataya 4y ago
    It's naive to think that a company would develop an AI capable of beating a lawyer in court and then sell it cheaply to poor people to beat traffic tickets. If anyone ever manages to develop an AI that is actually capable of replacing a lawyer, it will be priced way, way out of reach of those people. It will be sold to giant corporations so that they can spend $500k on licence fees rather than $1 million on legal fees. (And unless those corporations can get indemnities from the software vendor backed by personal guarantees they'd still be getting a raw deal.) These people are being sold snake oil. Cheap snake oil, maybe, but snake oil nonetheless.
- gfodor 4y ago
  Ultimately though the argument you have set up here seems to make it all but impossible for AI to displace humans in the legal profession. If the argument is "precedent rules" then "only humans can be lawyers" is precedent. I'm not sure if this particular case with this particular technology made sense - but I do think we need to encourage AI penetration of the legal profession, in a way that has minimal downside risk. (For defendants and plaintiffs, not lawyers.) It would be hugely beneficial for society if access to good legal advice was made extremely cheap.
  - lolinder 4y ago
    No, if in a hypothetical future we have technology that is capable of reliably performing the role, I don't have a problem with it. This tech is explicitly founded on LLMs, which have major inherent weaknesses that make them unsuitable.
drakythe 4y ago
As noted by several lawyers when some of the details of this experiment were revealed: The AI already committed a cardinal sin of traffic court in that it subpoenaed the ticketing officer. Rule 1 of traffic court: If the state's witness (the ticketing officer) doesn't show, defendant gets off. You do not subpoena that witness, thereby ensuring they show up. If the AI or its handlers cannot be trusted to pregame the court appearance even remotely well then no way in hell should it be trusted with the actual trial. You want to run this experiment? Great, lets setup a mock court with a real judge and observing lawyers and run through it. But don't waste a real court's time or some poor bastard's money by trying it in the real world first. A reminder that "Move fast and break things" should never apply where user's life or liberty is at stake.
- gfodor 4y ago
  agree to your last point, but a traffic ticket beta test does not fail that test
  - drakythe 4y ago
    While I agree in absolute terms, in legal terms it is problematic because it sets precedent, which is what the law often runs off of. Better to not breach that line until we're sure it can perform in all circumstances, or rules have been established which clearly delineate where AI assistance/lawyering is allowed and where it isn't.
- JumpCrisscross 4y ago
  > noted by several lawyers when some of the details of this experiment were revealed: The AI already committed a cardinal sin of traffic court in that it subpoenaed the ticketing officer Would you have a source?
  - drakythe 4y ago
    https://twitter.com/questauthority/status/1617541921102233601?s=20 https://twitter.com/questauthority/status/161754192110223360... Mike Dunford is a practicing attorney. Embedded tweet is of a non-lawyer who screenshotted Joshua Browser DoNotPay CEO) saying the subpoena had been sent. He has since deleted those tweets as DNP backs away from this plan.
freejazz 4y ago
Why is there this narrative that it's a response being done out of fear? That seems to be a huge misunderstanding on your part.
snowwrestler 4y ago
We can certainly run the experiment, just like we can let a kid touch a hot pan on the stove. Like the kid, the experiment is not to add knowledge to the world. Every adult knows touching a hot pan results in a burn. Just like everyone who understands how current LLMs work knows that it will fail at being a lawyer. Instead the point of such an experiment is to train the experimenter. The kid learns not to touch pans on the stove. In this case it’s not fair to metaphorically burn desperate legal defendants so that the leaders and investors in an LLM lawyer company learn their lesson. It’s the same reason we don’t let companies “experiment” with using random substances to treat cancer.
dclowd9901 4y ago
I mean, why not run it as an experiment? Fake Parking ticket, fake defendant, pay a judge to do the fake presiding. If the actual goal was to test it, it would be trivially easy to do. The goal here wasn't to test it, it was to get publicity.

by gfodor 4y ago

If this is the case, the lawyers should have nothing to fear, and the plaintiff nothing to lose but a parking ticket. I say we stop arguing and run the experiment.

lolinder 4y ago

Non-lawyers aren't banned from giving legal advice because lawyers are trying to protect their jobs, they're banned from giving legal advice because they're likely to be bad at it, and the people who take their advice are likely to be hurt. Yes, in this case, it would just be a parking ticket, but the legal system runs on precedent and it's safer to hold a strict line than to create a fuzzy "well, it depends on how much is at stake" line. If we know that ChatGPT is not equipped to give legal advice in the general case, there's no reason to allow a company to sell it as a stand-in for a lawyer. (I would feel differently about a defendant deciding to use the free ChatGPT in this way, because they would be deliberately ignoring the warnings ChatGPT gives. It's the fact that someone decided to make selling AI legal advice into a business model that makes it troubling.)

enraged_camel 4y ago
>> Non-lawyers aren't banned from giving legal advice because lawyers are trying to protect their jobs, they're banned from giving legal advice because they're likely to be bad at it, and the people who take their advice are likely to be hurt. But why would the opposing side's lawyers care about this? They presumably want their client to win the lawsuit.
- greiskul 4y ago
  Well, it is supposed to be a Justice system, and not a game. While it is very easy to forget that, and many of the participants in it clearly don't behave as such, the outcome of it should be to be just.
- freejazz 4y ago
  When did the opposing side's lawyers say anything about this? Are you confused? Law is a regulated profession. The lawyers pointing out that this is illegal aren't on the other side of the case...
- matthewheath 4y ago
  I only have immediate knowledge of UK law, but lawyers will generally have a duty to the court to act with independence in the interests of justice. This tends to mean that in situations where one side are self-represented or using the services of ChatGPT, etc. the opposing side is under a duty not to take unfair advantage of the fact that one side is not legally trained. They don't have to help them, but they can't act abusively by, for example, exploiting lack of procedural knowledge. If they deliberately took advantage of one side using ChatGPT and getting it wrong because the legal foundation of knowledge isn't there for that person, that could be a breach of their duty to the court and result in professional censure or other regulatory consequences.
- gameman144 4y ago
  Incompetent representation is grounds for a mistrial, or successful appeal. The prosecution wants to win, but they'd prefer to only have to win once. If you have to go back to trial, you've already showed your hand, and the defense (who is now competent) can adapt to it.
fallingknife 4y ago
They are not scared that it will fail. They are scared that it will succeed. And there's a great reason to allow a company to sell a stand-in for a lawyer. Cost. This isn't targeted at people who can afford lawyers, it's targeted at people who can't, for now at least.
- freejazz 4y ago
  Lawyers aren't scared at all. It's traffic court, you are really overstating things. If it was a serious case, it'd be even more ridiculous to put more on the line by being represented by a computer algorithm that isn't subject to any of the licensing standards of an atty, none of the repercussions, and being run by a business that is disclaiming all liability for their conduct. You know what an attorney can't do? Disclaim malpractice liability! It'd be wondrous if the esteemed minds of hackernews could put their brain cycles towards actually applying common sense and other things rather than jerking off to edgy narratives about disruption while completely disregarding the relevant facts to focus on what they find politically juicy ("lawyers are scared it will succeed". It's a tautological narrative you are weaving for yourself that completely skirts past all the principles underlying the legal profession and it's development over hundreds of years.
- JumpCrisscross 4y ago
  > are not scared that it will fail. They are scared that it will succeed Lawyers make heavy use of automated document sifting in e.g. e-discovery. Junior lawyers are expensive. Tech that makes them superfluous is a boon to partners. When we toss the village drunk from the bar, it isn’t because we’re scared they’ll drink all the booze.
- NoboruWataya 4y ago
  It's naive to think that a company would develop an AI capable of beating a lawyer in court and then sell it cheaply to poor people to beat traffic tickets. If anyone ever manages to develop an AI that is actually capable of replacing a lawyer, it will be priced way, way out of reach of those people. It will be sold to giant corporations so that they can spend $500k on licence fees rather than $1 million on legal fees. (And unless those corporations can get indemnities from the software vendor backed by personal guarantees they'd still be getting a raw deal.) These people are being sold snake oil. Cheap snake oil, maybe, but snake oil nonetheless.
gfodor 4y ago
Ultimately though the argument you have set up here seems to make it all but impossible for AI to displace humans in the legal profession. If the argument is "precedent rules" then "only humans can be lawyers" is precedent. I'm not sure if this particular case with this particular technology made sense - but I do think we need to encourage AI penetration of the legal profession, in a way that has minimal downside risk. (For defendants and plaintiffs, not lawyers.) It would be hugely beneficial for society if access to good legal advice was made extremely cheap.
- lolinder 4y ago
  No, if in a hypothetical future we have technology that is capable of reliably performing the role, I don't have a problem with it. This tech is explicitly founded on LLMs, which have major inherent weaknesses that make them unsuitable.

drakythe 4y ago

As noted by several lawyers when some of the details of this experiment were revealed: The AI already committed a cardinal sin of traffic court in that it subpoenaed the ticketing officer. Rule 1 of traffic court: If the state's witness (the ticketing officer) doesn't show, defendant gets off. You do not subpoena that witness, thereby ensuring they show up. If the AI or its handlers cannot be trusted to pregame the court appearance even remotely well then no way in hell should it be trusted with the actual trial. You want to run this experiment? Great, lets setup a mock court with a real judge and observing lawyers and run through it. But don't waste a real court's time or some poor bastard's money by trying it in the real world first. A reminder that "Move fast and break things" should never apply where user's life or liberty is at stake.

gfodor 4y ago
agree to your last point, but a traffic ticket beta test does not fail that test
- drakythe 4y ago
  While I agree in absolute terms, in legal terms it is problematic because it sets precedent, which is what the law often runs off of. Better to not breach that line until we're sure it can perform in all circumstances, or rules have been established which clearly delineate where AI assistance/lawyering is allowed and where it isn't.
JumpCrisscross 4y ago
> noted by several lawyers when some of the details of this experiment were revealed: The AI already committed a cardinal sin of traffic court in that it subpoenaed the ticketing officer Would you have a source?
- drakythe 4y ago
  https://twitter.com/questauthority/status/1617541921102233601?s=20 https://twitter.com/questauthority/status/161754192110223360... Mike Dunford is a practicing attorney. Embedded tweet is of a non-lawyer who screenshotted Joshua Browser DoNotPay CEO) saying the subpoena had been sent. He has since deleted those tweets as DNP backs away from this plan.

freejazz 4y ago

Why is there this narrative that it's a response being done out of fear? That seems to be a huge misunderstanding on your part.

snowwrestler 4y ago

We can certainly run the experiment, just like we can let a kid touch a hot pan on the stove. Like the kid, the experiment is not to add knowledge to the world. Every adult knows touching a hot pan results in a burn. Just like everyone who understands how current LLMs work knows that it will fail at being a lawyer. Instead the point of such an experiment is to train the experimenter. The kid learns not to touch pans on the stove. In this case it’s not fair to metaphorically burn desperate legal defendants so that the leaders and investors in an LLM lawyer company learn their lesson. It’s the same reason we don’t let companies “experiment” with using random substances to treat cancer.

dclowd9901 4y ago

I mean, why not run it as an experiment? Fake Parking ticket, fake defendant, pay a judge to do the fake presiding. If the actual goal was to test it, it would be trivially easy to do. The goal here wasn't to test it, it was to get publicity.