Joshua Browder is a junior at Stanford University. He has developed a chatbot called DoNotPay that uses artificial intelligence to provide free legal assistance. Browder calls it the “world’s first robot lawyer.” Following the success of this chatbot in New York, Seattle, and the United Kingdom, Browder has now made his invention available to users in all 50 states of the country.
Browder claims that this artificial intelligence-powered chatbot has helped people defeat more than 375,000 parking tickets in about two years.
“The legal industry is more than a 200 billion dollar industry, but I am excited to make the law free,” he says, though he’s concerned that some law firms might not be too happy with the free service that his chatbot provides. He’s also concerned about potential legal repercussions from the government.
There are countless categories for which the chatbot can provide assistance, ranging from an unfair parking ticket to reporting discrimination. It’s even capable of generating an appeal letter that the user can print out and sign.
To address the various differences between state laws, Browder worked with real lawyers and charities to create bots specific to a locality so only the relevant local bots are displayed when the user’s location is detected.
Browder eventually wants the chatbot, called DoNotPay, to cover more complex legal issues like divorces, marriages, and bankruptcies. IBM has offered its Watson technology for free so that users are able to express their legal questions in natural language.
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