Creator of Chatbot that Beat 160K Parking Fines Now Tackling Homelessness (theguardian.com)

An anonymous reader writes: The chatbot lawyer that overturned hundreds and thousands of parking tickets is now tackling another problem: homelessness. London-born Stanford student Joshua Browder created DoNotPay initially to help people appeal against fines for unpaid parking tickets. Dubbed "the world's first robot lawyer", Browder later programmed it to deal with a wider range of legal issues, such as claiming for delayed flights and trains and payment protection insurance (PPI). Now, Browder, 19, wants his chatbot to provide free legal aid to people facing homelessness. He said: "I never could have imagined a parking ticket bot would appeal so much to people. Then I realised: this issue is bigger than a few parking tickets." In an interview with the Washington Post, the 19-year-old said he decided to expand the bot's capabilities after DoNotPay began receiving messages about evictions and repossessions. In February this year tenant evictions reached the highest on record.

Comments

What Do You Call 100 Lawyers Replaced by a Robot?

[RobotRunAmok]

A Good Start.

Re:What Do You Call 100 Lawyers Replaced by a Robo

[Camel Pilot]

Yeah but there are probably still immoral things that a robot won't do for money so we will still need lawyers.

Humans Need Not Apply

[Daetrin]

Or another early sign that the AI revolution may be different from earlier industrial revolutions

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Re:Humans Need Not Apply

[RicktheBrick]

i am a 67 year old man who lives alone because his wife died and his children live in other states. When I look to the future I still see many needs for me. There is cleaning the house and me. There is mowing the grass in the summer and keeping the sidewalks and driveway free from snow in the winter. There is also raking the leaves in the fall. There is also cooking my food. There is maintaining the house I live in. Now I do not see any type of robots doing any of that work in the near future. I could see designing underground homes and transportation system so that there is a far less need for much of that work. For instance robots cooking meals and being delivered automatically. I think it will take more than 50 years for a lot of that to happen and I will be dead long before it does happen. But for someone born today it will be a definite problem when they are in their 50's. Since there are probably millions of people like me there will be lots of work unless someone decides to kill us all.

How is this a good thing?

[Anonymous Coward]

Non-paying tenants are the scum of the earth. They are literally taking food out of the mouths of their landlords. The landlord-tenant courts are absurdly pro-tenant as is and delay evictions for 6-12 months as a matter of course as is. Most landlords are not Donald Trumps. They are middle class people who own 1-3 units. A single non-paying tenant can and often does put them on the brink of bankruptcy. This isn't a good thing. People who cant afford their housing need to move and find cheaper housing. They shouldn't get 6-12 months at someone else's expense to do it.

Re:How is this a good thing?

[Tx]

I don't see anything in the article about the bot fighting evictions of non-paying tenants. It's talking about helping people who are already homeless to successfully apply for emergency council housing, and helping them get in touch with housing charities.

Re:How is this a good thing?

[beelsebob]

Right, I feel really sorry for the landlord who has enough money to buy two houses, taking food out of his mouth is *terrible* compared to taking food out of the mouth of the person who can't even afford the basics of staying in some shelter somewhere.

Re:How is this a good thing?

[jellomizer]

Having been a Landlord. They also need to take the ethical concerns on what service they are offering. And like many highly regulated areas, it is because there had been historical abuse in such field.
As a landlord you are offering a key part of a person's survival and well being. Now the landlord had cases where they evict people for a bunch of stupid reasons. And without such legal reasons the person will get kicked out and the apartment will get replaced well before any legal action can happen. So the ex-tenant has already loss, even before they can go to court, so why bother.

Re:How is this a good thing?

[Anonymous Coward]

Right, I feel really sorry for the landlord who has enough money to buy two houses, taking food out of his mouth is *terrible* compared to taking food out of the mouth of the person who can't even afford the basics of staying in some shelter somewhere.

1) Many landlords don't have "enough" money, they take out loans (and have to pay them back using rental income) to buy rental properties.

2) Why should the landlord be responsible for providing rent-free housing for their tenants? Some of whom are perfectly capable of paying and are just being jerks.

Personally I'd never buy rental property because most people are jerks and I don't want to deal with them.

Re:How is this a good thing?

[PrimaryConsult]

The solution to this is any one of the following:
1. only be a landlord in areas without those silly requirements
2. charge a rent high enough to cover such eventualities

You've basically explained exactly why rents in SF are so high. SImply not worth the hassle, try your luck in Denver or any Texas city....

Re:How is this a good thing?

[lgw]

You wot mate?

I like renting. I'm lazy, and I like problems to be someone else's. I value the service provided, not just by the property management company that that replaces the water heater and takes car of the greenery and roofing work without any effort from me, but the property owner, who provides the up-front capital so I don't have to. Sure, I could buy a condo, but I don't want the risk, so I'm glad someone else does.

the problem is jackboot landlords.

[nimbius]

disclaimer: I work to prosecute housing discrimination. im not your attorney though.
after the 1964 civil rights amendment landlords needed new tools to continue the systemic policy of redlined districs in light of things like equal housing policies and anti-discrimination ordinances. They largely found it in Reagans call for a "lawful" society and began instituting policies to reflect "lawfulness" in their rental applications. tenants could now be refused for prior criminal record, poor credit, no credit, lack of a drivers license, bank account, even washing their car outside or having expired tags on their car which would have it towed by a private company at a housing authorities discretion. the idea was to antagonize and outright shun poor people into a market created especially for them.

existing tenements apartments like cabrini green did not have much in the way of requirements for housing other than section 8. Cabrini was a repository for low income black renters and designed to continue a housing segregation policy into the 21st century, but it began to fail after systemic poverty gave rise to sectarian violence and outright block warfare that chewed up a dozen or more cops a year. the solution for Cabrini was to demolish it, renovate the space, and the tenants would then be allowed to return. but it did not work that way. new landlords began instituting the same policies in Cabrini that landlords from the sixties used to prevent access to middle class neighbourhoods for upwardly mobile black families. the result was displacement, and unaccountable gentrification at the expense of a community thats been largely ignored.

to fix the homeless crisis in america means we need to address things like systemic racism, the boom bust cycle of poverty and inequality in american capitalism, and the ability for landed gentry to impose arbitrary restriction on any number of free living conditions to police and enforce what essentially turn into their own mini cities and states. the bot proposed can help with things like overzealous prosecutors and cities that have an unwritten debtors prison policy, but it will do nothing to prevent unscrupulous lenders and collections agencies from hounding the poor and ruining credit scores required for upward mobility.

Re:the problem is jackboot landlords.

[Anonymous Coward]

How is wanting you to pay your rent on time, as you agreed to, racist???

If renters cannot pay the rent, buh-bye. Just like if you cannot afford an iPhone, you don't get one because you a not white. You don't get one because you don't pay.

Re:the problem is jackboot landlords.

[liquid_schwartz]

I'm normally fairly civil on the internet but if you support Section 8 then I can only hope that you die and soon. Section 8 is an insult to every hard working American and supports generational poverty while simultaneously enriching the already rich. In short just about everything bad is embodied in Section 8. The rich get guaranteed government checks, the poor get free housing and spread more crime (citation below) and the middle class just gets the shaft as usual.

Citation: http://www.theatlantic.com/mag...

Re:the problem is jackboot landlords.

[Zak3056]

Section 8, as designed, is a welfare program that anyone (conservative, liberal, whatever) can get behind. It was the proverbial "hand up, not a hand out" that was designed to move people out of projects, where opportunity was low (at best) and into situations where they could truly benefit themselves. The original participants were chosen very carefully, and were tightly screened. They looked for people who wanted to work. People who kept neat houses and took care of their kids. When they were enrolled in the program, they were followed up on to check their progress and ensure they were doing their part. The program was a massive success--the people it helped had overwhelmingly positive outcomes.

What we have today is a result of it being a victim of its own success. Because it was so successful, scads of money was thrown at the program in an attempt to expand it to more people. Today, just about ANYONE who meets the income requirements can get on section 8 (it is awarded typically by lottery), there is no screening, no followup, or anything else. Its use has (as your citations notes) exported crime from the high crime areas to the low crime areas, all under the guise of "equality" (where everyone lives an equally shitty life, I guess?) it's basically the inverse of the "villas at Kenny's House" gag on South Park, with predictable results.

I (strongly!) support section 8, but as it was originally designed and implemented, and not the gigantic mess we have today. If you still want me to die as a result, then (with equal civility) I suggest that you go fuck yourself.

Re:the problem is jackboot landlords.

[drinkypoo]

to fix the homeless crisis in america means we need to address things like systemic racism, the boom bust cycle of poverty and inequality in american capitalism, and the ability for landed gentry to impose arbitrary restriction on any number of free living conditions to police and enforce what essentially turn into their own mini cities and states.

No. What we have to fix is the political process. The majority of states can legally use eminent domain to seize empty homes from banks and give them to the homeless, which is precisely what should be done when (as now) the banks refuse to sell the properties for what the market will bear. We know that's what they are doing beyond any shadow of a doubt because there are literally multiple empty homes for every homeless man, woman, and child in this nation.

Many of our state governments have the power to address this situation, but our elected officials lack the will to improve our lot at the expense of angering the banks. Traitors, all.

Re:the problem is jackboot landlords.

[Zak3056]

Thank you for your return to civility.

To reply to something you said upthread: I agree teaching people to fish that far, far preferable to providing them daily fish rations. Sometimes, though, you're faced with people who live in the middle of a desert, where teaching them to fish just isn't feasible, and is never going to be. At that point, you can either feed them on the journey out of the desert, or just leave them to die. To me, there is no choice between the two.

To goal of all welfare programs should be self-obsolecence--that people enrolled in those programs transition out of them as soon as possible. Section 8, as originally structured, was designed to do just that. We need to go back to it and come up with more programs like it.

Lawyers don’t want to deal with this crap, t

[Theovon]

This isn’t putting any layers out of work. How many do you think want to deal with minor parking and traffic violations? The more interesting cases are personal injury, criminal, IP, and other things where somebody has deep pockets. Heck, most of the time, people don’t involve lawyers in small claims, because it’s not cost-effective.

Who besides the ticket-writers and land lords wouldn’t be chearing for some online legal help? Actually, all the information you’d need to handle these cases was already online; all this does is automate it for you. Not to downplay this, though. Lots of apps have complicated interfaces to do things, but sometimes it’s really nice to have one of those “wizard” dialogues to help you get it started by asking all the right questions.

Definitely need this in the US

[fustakrakich]

Civil asset forfeiture, foreclosure fraud, drug offenses, IRS, no fly lists, Our 100 mile "constitution free zone", for almost any non responsive government bureaucracy, the list goes on...

Re:Leftists at it again

[jellomizer]

The US Legal system has a few issues.
1. Most of the law makers are also lawyers. Just as I am a Computer Scientist and I think things can get better if you just fix the process, a trained Lawyer will think to just adding new laws or changing a law will fix all of the problems.

2. Many fines are a source of revenue for the government. While they may give an impassioned speech on how such laws are protecting people. While they are just filling the point of bringing in additional revenue.

3. Laws to help the poor are so complex that only the rich can take advantage of them. Lets put being PC aside for a bit. Often the reason why Poor people are poor is because their actions are not ideal. Such as taking drugs, getting into trouble, or just being lazy. So many of these laws are written for the mythical angle who just seemed to not be able to make it. And when social services are given to people don't seem to deserve it, it gets a lot of heat. So they put a lot of hooks in these laws to prevent abuse that it is nearly impossible for people to take advantage of them.

It's an equalizer

[drew_kime]

The people writing tickets - and prosecuting them - do it thousands of time a year. Most people defending against them do it once a year or less. Apps like this just put defendants on a more even footing with prosecutors in terms of knowing the law.

Prosecutors may complain, but if your argument is that you prefer when people don't know the law, you deserve to lose.