Artificial intelligence company DoNotPay has dropped plans to deploy AI as a lawyer in a real court case for the first time after reportedly being threatened with legal action.
The trial on 22 February was to be the first time an AI advised a defendant in court, which the firm鈥檚 founder, Joshua Browder, told 快猫短视频 would be 鈥渢echnically within the rules, but I don鈥檛 think it鈥檚 in the spirit of the rules鈥�. The location of the US court hadn鈥檛 been revealed, but the defendant was due to appear on speeding charges.
Browder said that some jurisdictions have legislation to allow the use of hearing aids in court, and that he believed using Apple AirPods 鈥� which have been found to provide in some situations 鈥� would therefore be allowed.
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The AI would have listened to court proceedings and told the defendant exactly what to say in order to have the best chance of winning the case. DoNotPay was considering the experiment as research and development and had agreed to pay any fines, should they have been imposed.
Browder told 快猫短视频 earlier this month that he was optimistic about the outcome of the trial. 鈥淚t鈥檚 not rocket science. This is not the Supreme Court, you know,鈥� he said.
After announcing his intention to run that relatively low-stakes experiment, Browder began looking for a second, much larger guinea pig for that very court: to anyone with an upcoming hearing in the US Supreme Court 鈥� the highest court in the country 鈥� to let his AI argue their case.
But DoNotPay has decided not to proceed, according to a tweet from Browder. He didn鈥檛 respond to a request for comment.
鈥淎fter receiving threats from State Bar prosecutors, it seems likely they will put me in jail for 6 months if I follow through with bringing a robot lawyer into a physical courtroom. DoNotPay is postponing our court case and sticking to consumer rights,鈥� he .
He continued to say that the company would focus on issues such as lowering medical bills, cancelling subscriptions and disputing credit reports. 鈥淯nlike courtroom drama, these types of cases can be handled online, are simple and are underserved,鈥� he said.
DoNotPay was launched in 2015 as a relatively simple chatbot that provided legal advice around consumer issues, relying heavily on templated conversations. The firm started focusing more on AI in 2020, when OpenAI released a publicly available programming interface for people to tap into the abilities of GPT-3, its language-processing AI.
