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Robot Lawyers: Taking Over Parking Ticket Appeals and More

By Noah C. Hagan posted 10-17-2016 14:11

  

It’s one thing for robots to take over household chores. But it’s an entirely different thing for robots to take over the business of lawyers. Or is it?

Stanford student Joshua Browder developed an online robot lawyer to challenge parking tickets in London and New York. The interface doesn’t look particularly complicated. In fact, the landing page is quite sparse. However, behind this unassuming website lies a remarkably effective tool for challenging parking tickets. In fact, as of this past June, the site had successfully challenged 160,000 out of 250,000 parking tickets.

It works like this: The Do Not Pay bot asks a series of questions about the parking ticket, such as whether signs were visible at the time of the ticket or whether the ticket included adequate details. Then, the bot files an appeal on your behalf.

This relatively simple robot lawyer system may be just the beginning. ROSS Intelligence has developed artificial intelligence technology that can perform legal research, called ROSS. ROSS uses IBM’s Watson technology and becomes “smarter” the more human lawyers interact with it. 

10-17-robotlawyer.JPGBut would ROSS replace human lawyers? Not now, says the chief information officer of a law firm using ROSS. Instead, it is a “supplemental tool to help them move faster, learn faster, and continually improve.”

Is robot-generated legal research just the first step? Surely robots that can negotiate deals and draft briefs are in the distant future. Or are they?

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