
Introducing the World's Most Advanced Chatbot Lawyer - jonbaer
https://www.lawbot.info/
======
xkcd-sucks
LawBot: Hi, I'm LawBot, a robot lawyer designed to help you through this
situation. Please tell me your name or say anonymous if you would rather not.

You: i was arrested for public urination

LawBot: Nice to meet you, i was arrested for public urination. I can help you
understand if you have been the victim of a sex offence, a property offence,
physical or psychological injury, or harassment. If you don't understand what
I am saying, just say so and I will explain. If you don't understand a word,
just ask me about it and I will give you a definition. Would you like to get
started?

You: i was arrested for public urination

LawBot: Please describe briefly in one sentence what happened to you. Try to
use words that people usually use when speaking about this issue to help me
understand you.

You: i was arrested

LawBot: Sorry, could you try to explain that in a different way? Maybe be more
specific about the incident?

~~~
tedunangst
Can you try being arrested for a different crime?

------
drinchev
I barely understand the chat bots hype around these days. They all remind me
of Clippy [1] and are especially ineffective when it comes to complicated
interaction.

1 :
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_Assistant](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_Assistant)

~~~
jondubois
It's not even a lawyer; it sounds more like a police prosecutor.

Saying that it's 'the World's Most Advanced Chatbot Lawyer' sounds like an
outright lie in every way. It only helps plaintiffs, not defendants - It's a
prosecutor.

------
gnicholas
> LawBot Too much recursion in AIML

I got this several times, once when asking about the definition of a term
("psychological injury") and again when trying to get information about
harassment crimes. Seems more like an alpha so far...

The chatbot should probably make clear up-front that all information provided
(1) does not constitute legal advice, and (2) is all based on the laws of a
certain jurisdiction (presumably somewhere in the UK). Otherwise people might
think that the information provided is relevant to them when it isn't
actually. I don't know if it provides disclaimers later in the process because
I kept getting errors before any advice was given.

Lastly, this looks to be run completely by law and other students. They should
probably have some actual lawyers involved to make sure that (1) their
analyses are correct, and (2) they aren't running afoul of laws regarding
providing legal advice. It would probably also make people feel more
comfortable using the tool.

~~~
rspeer
Jesus crap, they're using AIML and claiming this is the world's most advanced
anything?

AIML is an old framework for writing rule-based chatbots. It's a
generalization of Eliza.

------
mooman219
LawBot: Sorry, I don't understand. Say 'crime' to start over, 'glossary' for
definitions, or 'instructions' if I'm being complicated.

You: crime

LawBot: A crime is anything that a person does that will lead to a criminal
conviction.

The sass.

~~~
mamp
LawBot: Were you caused physical harm?

hmm, 2 comments in and I'm confused...

------
reaperhulk
[https://popehat.com/2016/10/26/if-lawbot-wants-to-know-
about...](https://popehat.com/2016/10/26/if-lawbot-wants-to-know-about-my-
anus-im-sure-it-has-a-reason/)

------
soufron
"The world's most advanced"? WTF Bullshit is that. It's just a fucking
decision tree, and not a very good one on top of that!

~~~
martinko
Seriously, title is complete clickbait

~~~
xenny
Absolutely.

------
dilemma
Services like this are 100% useless because it is impossible for the user to
verify that the software has (1) accurately interpreted the question and (2)
accurately answered the question.

------
antirez
When you try for some time, it eventually does what it should try to do since
the start, given that NLP is not easy and _not_ needed in this case: it starts
to ask you questions with a fixed set of possible replies in order to narrow
the case to a set of pre-existing possibilities.

~~~
mamp
Agreed, the chatbot facade slows it down, it's a simple decision tree that
could be handled with a few checkboxes and conditional display.

------
paulcole
I tried "I got arrested for drunk driving" 3 or 4 times in a row and never got
any reasonable response. If a lawbot can't help with "DUI" or a more common
phrasing, it should at least recognize it.

------
tdeck
I'm surprised it's not illegal for them to claim this bot is a "lawyer".
Usually it seems like people are very careful about that, and clearly the bot
wouldn't pass any bar exam.

~~~
soufron
I think it is. Just wait for someone to sue their ass.

------
J-dawg
I've seen several articles recently saying that chatbots are The Next Big
Thing. I just don't get it. Every chatbot I've ever used reminds me of playing
those text-based adventure games, where you need to rephrase your question
several times to get the outcome you want.

I find it hard to imagine a situation where a chatbot would help me find the
information I need faster than a nice structured menu layout or a good search
engine.

Am I missing something?

------
kisstheblade
You

My car was stolen

LawBot

Sorry, could you try to explain that in a different way? Maybe be more
specific about the incident?

\----

I may not be a native English speaker but come on, isn't that wording pretty
clear?

------
nullc
It seems better at generating unintentional dad jokes than giving legal
advice:

[http://0bin.net/paste/rBkOCw5hi2sAdvPx#5e1Be08sJSV9sFCWTbS2D...](http://0bin.net/paste/rBkOCw5hi2sAdvPx#5e1Be08sJSV9sFCWTbS2DHQLcFEq5cpMuP+1uTt9vqR)

------
Hondor
It advised me to go a police station 8000 km away. That's the closest one it
could find.

------
jaclaz
Well, given that this is the World's Most Advanced, I would like to see some
sample conversations with the less advanced ones.

------
jaifraic
Oh, is this the Bob Loblaw Lawbot? Didn't read about it in Bob Loblaw's
Lawblog.

------
xenny
Me: She groped me. LawBot: Did she have a pen*s?

xD

