If you’ve dreamed of the day when artificial intelligence could free you from paying fines, you just have to keep dreaming. DoNotPay has backed out of its plans to use an AI-powered “robot lawyer” to advise a defendant through a real-time court hearing. The reason why? Well, apparently the law got in the way of robot advocacy.
The company’s founder and CEO, Joshua Browder, first announced the news in a Wednesday tweet. “After receiving threats from prosecutors, if I bring a robot lawyer into a physical courtroom, they will likely put me in jail for 6 months,” he wrote. In a phone call with Gizmodo, Browder reiterated his view that if he lived up to his original promises, he would likely end up in prison.
DoNotPay first announced that it had developed an AI legal advice tool using OpenAI’s ChatGPT technology and plans to covertly test the tool in a real live court case earlier this month. But then the backlash from attorneys and bar associations began, Browder told Gizmodo.
DoNotPay has not publicly announced the state in which the test traffic violation case was scheduled to be heard. However, the CEO explained that enough bar associations had contacted the company and threatened lawsuits, saying the risk of retaliation had become too great. In fact, the bevy of angry legal unions have inadvertently included the state where Browder plans to take his AI creation to court. “The prosecutor concerned does not know that this is the relevant case,” he added. But just knowing that the State’s Bar was paying attention was enough to spook the DoNotPay founder.
“They threatened to charge us with tortious wrongdoing,” Browder said. He further speculated that other charges such as interference with court practice may have been in the dock. Through extensive discussions with his company’s actual human legal counsel, Browder said, it became clear that “according to my attorney, I could face six months in prison for helping a person with a $200 speeding ticket “. Charges of tort carry very different prison sentences from state to state, but range from up to two years for first-time offenders, according to a 2011 analysis.
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For Browder, the risk of jail time wasn’t worth it, as he has now decided that it is/was a distraction from DoNotPay’s primary goal of consumer rights and advocacy. Now, “we’ve basically moved away from that legal direction and we’re asserting all consumer rights,” Browder said. Getting consumers’ money back from places like greedy utilities and insurance companies is DoNotPay’s “bread and butter,” he added.
Also, Browder is British, and as a non-US citizen, he said, “I don’t need that on my record … I don’t want that drama.”
In a previous conversation with Gizmodo, Browder touted lofty goals like expanding “access to justice” for people who couldn’t otherwise afford legal aid. Now he thinks smaller. “We stay in our lane, to use a speeding ticket metaphor.”
In both conversations with Gizmodo, Browder made it clear that he is aware of the legal risks and potential violations associated with the demolished courtroom. But he was confident that it would become small potatoes for the legal system.
“I didn’t really think so [the courts and lawyers] would be so upset because I thought it was just a speeding ticket case and not the Supreme Court,” Browder said. Which is an odd choice of words considering the same guy once tweeted that his company would pay $1 million to anyone willing to use DoNotPay’s AI counsel in the US Supreme Court, but I digress .
“I also underestimated how much time and resources attorneys would devote trying to prevent this,” Browder added. Still, one would think it obvious that lawyers are argumentative by definition.
Not only will DoNotPay abandon its plans to AI support an in-person trial, but it will also not pursue a similar virtual case that was supposed to take place via the Zoom process.
Additionally, according to Browder, the company has removed all of its legal advice templates and document generators from its website. These templates weren’t powered by AI, but the CEO decided they too distracted from his company’s core purpose.
“I don’t think robots should write defamation letters,” he said. “I think it’s just really good for consumer rights.”
Browder said DoNotPay will continue to develop AI tools to help its users navigate phone calls and other interactions with corporate bureaucracy. For now, the site still offers templates and non-AI automated tools like chatbots to help people deal with day-to-day frustrations like Comcast tech support.
“These court cases were never a product from the start. It was just an advocacy project,” Browder said. “Lawyers won this round, but we’re coming back.” Even if DoNotPay survives this PR roller coaster, the “robot lawyer” certainly doesn’t.