Episode 157: BLEEP BLOOP I OBJECT YOUR HONOR BLEEP BLOOP

After Jesse regales Katie with his famous Boston Bit (tm) and Katie catches Jesse up on every single thing that has happened on Twitter since he left, the two discuss the case of DoNotPay and Joshua Browder. Are we on the brink of robot lawyers effortlessly guiding underprivileged clients through difficult legal proceedings? Or is, like, literally none of that going to happen? Show notes/Links Anti-Italian hate crime https://www.washingtonpost.com/food/2023/03/23/tiktok-pasta-blender-reaction/ Beware The Hard R: “Chatbot lawyer overturns 160,000 parking tickets in London and New York” https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/jun/28/chatbot-ai-lawyer-donotpay-parking-tickets-london-new-york Browder <3 Buffett Above The Law on the then-new version of DoNotPay https://abovethelaw.com/legal-innovation-center/2018/10/12/donotpay-is-the-latest-legal-tech-darling-but-some-are-saying-do-not-click/ The legal actions offered on DoNotPay cover an impressive range. One feature allows users to file a claim in any small claims court in the country, including all 3,000 counties in the 50 states. Perhaps even more significant in the current political climate, DoNotPay includes a service that claims to help users obtain green cards and visas, eliminating the usual service fees. Other service offerings include searching for hidden class action settlements you’re owed, fighting credit card and overdraft fees, suing tech companies for data breaches, and collecting money from hotel and airline bookings through price protection guarantees. And, of course, you can still fight parking tickets, which is how DoNotPay got its start in the first place. The Verge in 2022 https://www.theverge.com/2022/12/13/23505873/donotpay-negotiate-bills-ai-chatbot DoNotPay, the company that bills itself as “the world’s first robot lawyer,” is launching a new AI-powered chatbot that can help you negotiate bills and cancel subscriptions without having to deal with customer service. In a demo of the tool posted by DoNotPay CEO Joshua Browder, the chatbot manages to get a discount on a Comcast internet bill through Xfinity’s live chat. Once it connects with a customer service representative, the bot asks for a better rate using account details provided by the customer. The chatbot cites problems with Xfinity’s services and threatens to take legal action, to which the representative responds by offering to take $10 off the customer’s monthly internet bill. HISTORY COMING Y’ALL Techdirt weighs in https://www.techdirt.com/2023/01/17/ai-creator-offers-1-million-hell-never-have-to-pay-to-anyone-willing-to-let-his-lawbot-argue-their-supreme-court-case/ HMMM People also point out a rather straightforward obstacle to Browder’s plan now memorialized in one of those helpful boxes GO BIG OR GO HOME Kathryn Tewson https://twitter.com/KathrynTewson Deleted tweet More on deleted tweets In one tweet, Browder apparently said that his team had issued a subpoena written by the AI to get the officer involved to appear in court Not strictly against the rules Not “outright illegal” The website no work “Hey - thank you for signing up for donotpay. We have good intentions and are happy to respond to your feedback.” [REBLOCKS] “Good morning! Bad news” incredibly exciting announcements HMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM NPR covers the aborted robot lawyer attempt https://www.npr.org/2023/01/25/1151435033/a-robot-was-scheduled-to-argue-in-court-then-came-the-jail-threats Actual legal experts https://blog.simplejustice.us/2023/01/22/a-i-for-the-defense/ https://reason.com/volokh/2023/01/26/bar-associations-threaten-pro-se-litigant-aided-by-ai-with-upl-suits It gets worse Very literal phrasing STOP! STOP! HE’S ALREADY DEAD Might as well look into earlier claims too The Guardian’s source for this claim is… a Medium post from Browder himself. https://web.archive.org/web/20160903073329/https://medium.com/@jbrowder1/speaking-about-parking-tickets-donald-trump-hiv-aids-and-career-politicians-in-a-techcrunch-37b06a4c1ac7 TechDirt notes that they’d been suspicious of those same claims way back in 2017, but decided not to run the story https://www.techdirt.com/2023/02/07/heres-the-article-we-didnt-run-back-in-2017-about-donotpay/ So recently Browder went on the LawNext podcast and it didn’t go well — he calls the controversy “A Bit Of A Nothingburger” https://lawnext.libsyn.com/ep-193-a-bit-of-a-nothingburger-joshua-browder-speaks-to-the-donotpay-controversy Tewson actually went on the very next episode https://lawnext.libsyn.com/ep-194-paralegal-kathryn-tewson-on-her-quest-for-accountability-from-donotpay Ruh roh https://www.courthousenews.com/robot-lawyers-not-yet-lawsuit-says/ All’s well that ends well? Dead cougar or whatever https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2023-02-04/thousands-gather-to-attend-p-22-celebration-of-life-at-greek-theater Image: “robot lawyer in court” via DALL-E 2

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