Robot Lawyer To Represent Defendant In Court In World First

A robot lawyer is set to represent a defendant in an actual court case for the first time in history. This is all powered by DoNotPay‘s artificial intelligence (AI), which touts itself as the world’s first robot lawyer.

The defendant will be wearing an earpiece (apparently Apple AirPods) and will be coached in court by the AI on what to say. The case involves a minor traffic offense. The goal is to guide the defendant with the use of DoNotPay’s technology to possibly get the speeding charges and fines dropped.

How the Robot Lawyer will Work

The court case is set to take place in February 2023 in the US. It is considered to be the first time where a defendant is represented by AI in real life.

DoNotPay CEO, Joshua Browder said that the court/judge will not even be aware of the advice and guidance being fed to the defendant through the AirPods. The CEO elaborated that, because of the less serious nature of the case, the stakes aren’t as high as they would be for a serious offense. He did state that the company would take full responsibility if there are resulting legal repercussions from the defendant being coached by a robot lawyer. He also mentioned that the defendant is being compensated for being part of this first-of-its-kind court case.

The AI, in this case, has been trained to only tell the truth, based on facts. This court case is seen as a proof concept to motivate the use of technology, specifically AI, by courts. The vision of the company is to “level the playing field and make legal information and self-help accessible to everyone.”

We recently wrote about the power of AI to assist businesses in making more informed and better strategic decisions. But this is AI on another level. This court case, if all goes well, could open the court doors for further AI-powered plaintiff and defendant claims. We will all be waiting to see how this all goes down in a real-life court case.

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