Have Parking Tickets? This Robot Lawyer Can Come to Your Rescue

No More Need for Lawyers?

A new online service is becoming popular among people disputing parking tickets. We all respect the law, but parking tickets can be questionable. This is where DoNotPay could help.

DoNotPay was originally made available in London and New York by Joshua Browder, a 20-year old Stanford University student from London who believes DoNotPay can help drivers with parking ticket disputes by leveling "the playing field so anyone can have the same legal access under the law," Browder said.. Recently, he has expanded the service into Seattle. Browder's online bot has helped overturn more than 200,000 parking tickets in these three cities, with a 60 percent success rate. He hopes to expand the service to San Francisco, Chicago, Denver, and Los Angeles.

AI lawyers

This isn't the first time an artificially intelligent (AI) system has dabbled in law. IBM Watson has an AI lawyer named Ross, and a recent study showed promise in an AI lawyer that reviewed human rights cases in Europe. While the effectiveness of these AI systems remains questionable, DoNotPay's robot provides a unique paralegal service.

Seattle's city officials think it could be useful. "Currently, we have four part-time field investigators to do the investigations for signs and curbs in the city of Los Angeles," Wayne Garcia, parking operations chief for the city of Los Angeles, said.

So, DoNotPay will be a refuge for victims of confusing signages or for people who rush into no parking spots. This might seem like a small and insignificant development that will be used by just a few. But, if this system is successful, it could lead to the creation and adoption of similar programs. This could streamline and improve the efficiency of outdated processes like fighting parking tickets. This could save massive amounts of legal time and resources. But, will it be taking away jobs from humans?

It is possible that, as AI becomes integrated into new technology, jobs that were once done by people will become obsolete. With new technology, however, comes new jobs to develop and maintain new systems. It is difficult to predict, with accuracy, exactly how the adoption of AI technologies will affect job growth. However, while jobs might be threatened, there is the promise of new job creation.