Ride the Lightning

Chatbot “Lawyer” Overturns 160,000 Parking Tickets in London and New York

June 30, 2016

The Guardian had a marvelous story on June 28^th about an artificial intelligence "chatbot lawyer" – a free service called DoNotPay – which has successfully contested 160,000 parking tickets across London and New York for free.

Dubbed "the world's first robot lawyer" by its London-born 19-year-old creator, Stanford University student Joshua Browder, DoNotPay helps users contest parking tickets in an easy to use chat-like interface.

The program first determines whether an appeal is possible through a series of simple questions, such as asking if there were there clearly visible parking signs, and then guides users through the appeals process. The service has taken on 250,000 cases in the last 21 months since its launch and has won 160,000 of them, a success rate of 64% appealing over $4 million in parking tickets.

The bot was created by the self-taught coder after receiving 30 parking tickets at the age of 18 in and around London. The process for appealing the fines is relatively formulaic and perfectly suits AI, which is able to quickly drill down and give the appropriate advice without charging legal fees.

Browder intends to expand DoNotPay to Seattle. His next challenge for the "AI lawyer" is helping people with flight delay compensation, as well as helping the HIV positive understand their rights and acting as a guide for refugees navigating foreign legal systems.

Bloody brilliant. Well done, Joshua.

Hat tip to Jim McCauley.

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