There are also many adjacent algorithms that could solve the same problem, but you still need to execute the algorithm correctly. LLMs are not ready for unsupervised use in any domain outside of curiosity, and what DoNotPay is proposing would be to let one roam free in a courtroom.
I'm not at all opposed to using LLMs in the research and discovery phase. But having a naive defendant with no legal experience parroting an LLM in court is deeply problematic, even if the stakes are low in this particular category of law.
That’s nowhere near analogous because between every working algorithm are massive gulfs of syntactic and semantic failure zones. This is not the case with human language, which is the whole power of both language production and language interpretation.
Is it more problematic than this person 1) not being represented, 2) having to pay exorbitant fees to be represented, or 3) having an extremely overworked and disinterested public defender?
I’m not convinced.
The idea that we need to wait to do this stuff until the people whose profession is under threat give “permission” is dismissible on its face and is exactly why we should be doing this is as quickly as possible. For what it’s worth, I mostly agree with you: I’m doubtful the technology is there yet. But that’s a call for each defendant to make in each new case and so long as they’re of sound mind, they should be free to pick whatever legal counsel they want.
> 1) not being represented, 2) having to pay exorbitant fees to be represented, or 3) having an extremely overworked and disinterested public defender?
You’re leaving off being put in jail for contempt of court, perjuring oneself, making procedural errors that result in an adverse default ruling, racking up fines, et cetera. Bad legal representation is ruinous.
Gee good thing everyone in court gets good representation at reasonable prices eh?
I get that lawyers think their profession is important (it is) and that by and large they’re positive for their clients (they are), but there are a lot of people who simply do not have access to any worthwhile representation. I saw Spanish-speaking kids sent to juvenile detention for very minor charges conducted in English with no interpreter and a completely useless public defender. So in my view that is the alternative for many people, not Pretty Decent Representation.
There are people who can stomach the downside risks to push this tech forward for people who cannot stomach the downside risks of the current reality.
Do you know that? How do you know that’s what the model would do? How do you know that the defendant doesn’t have an 80 IQ and an elementary school grasp on English? Do you think this doesn’t happen today and that these people don’t get absolutely dragged by the system?
We know that subpoenaing [possibly] no-show cops is what the model will do because that is what the CEO says the model did in the run up to this particular case.
Someone with an 80 IQ and an elementary school grasp of English is going to get absolutely dragged by the system with or without a "robot lawyer" if they insist on fighting without competent representation, but they'd probably still stand a better chance of getting off a fine on a technicality if they weren't paying a VC-backed startup to write a letter make sure the cops turned up to testify against them.
They'd also be more likely to not get absolutely dragged if they listened to a human that told them not to bother than a signup flow that encouraged them to purchase further legal representation to pursue the case.
Last time I checked with a lawyer about a traffic ticket he told me that it wasn't worth his time to go to court (this was the school provided free legal service and the case was just a burnt headlight that I didn't have verified fixed within a week, you decide if he should have gone to court with me or if he would have for a more complex case), but I was instructed how to present my case. I got my fine reduced at least, which was important as a student paying my own way (I'm one of the last to pay for college just by working jobs between class, so this was important)
Yeah, that's because he's an attorney that gets paid a lot. go to the traffic court and you'll find the ones that don't get paid a lot. That's why they are hanging out in traffic court representing litigants there.
I mean, not contesting the ticket is likely to be a better option than delegating your chances of not being convicted of contempt of court or perjury to the truthfulness and legal understanding of an LLM...
Sure if your objective is to minimize your own personal exposure. If your goal is to push toward a world where poor folks aren’t coerced into not contesting their tickets because they can’t afford to go to court or get representation, then maybe it is a good option.
I prefer a world in which people pay a small fine or make their own excuses rather than pay the fine money to a VC-backed startup for access to an LLM to mount a legally unsound defence that ends up getting them into a lot more trouble, yes.
If your goal is to ensure poor folks are pushed towards paying an utterly unaccountable service further fees to escalate legal cases they don't have the knowledge to win so the LPs of Andreesen Horowitz have that bit more growth in their portfolio, I can see how you would think differently.
> goal is to push toward a world where poor folks aren’t coerced into not contesting their tickets
Invest in a company doing this properly and not pushing half-baked frauds into the world. Supervised learning, mock trials. You’re proposing turning those poor folk into Guinea pigs, gambling with their freedom from afar.
This company has been doing this stuff for years. Yes this is a big step forward but it’s not from zero, as you’re suggesting. What makes you think they haven’t been doing mock trials and tons of supervised learning?
And no, I’m not. I don’t think Defendant Zero (or one, or two, or 100) should be people whose lives would be seriously affected by errors. I’m pretty sure DNP doesn’t either.
> What makes you think they haven’t been doing mock trials and tons of supervised learning?
The CEO tweeting they fucked up a default judgement [1]. That not only communicates model failure, but also lack of domain expertise and controls at the organisational level.
This is a false dichotomy that you are making up in order to politically justify your narrative that is otherwise completely made up nonsense best described as legal malpractice.
I'm not at all opposed to using LLMs in the research and discovery phase. But having a naive defendant with no legal experience parroting an LLM in court is deeply problematic, even if the stakes are low in this particular category of law.