Typically, automation disproportionately impacts bricklayers, assembly line workers, and other blue-collar jobs. The government managerial class, comprised mostly of lawyers, has hitherto enjoyed the luxury of ignoring these trends, as they don’t impact their own lives or anyone in their social circles.
Who cares if the peasants starve out on the bread line, right? D.C. is still a boomtown. But now the AI hostile takeover, perhaps, is coming for their livelihoods.
A cyberpunk app called DoNotPay, according to its purveyor, “utilizes artificial intelligence to help consumers fight against large corporations and solve their problems like beating parking tickets, appealing bank fees, and suing robocallers.”
Via NewScientist:
An artificial intelligence is set to advise a defendant in court for the first time ever. The AI will run on a smartphone and listen to all speech in the courtroom in February before instructing the defendant on what to say via an earpiece.
The self-interested lawyer interviewed on the Law & Order Network subscribes to the idea that AI lawyers will only ever prove utilitarian in traffic court because of the higher stakes (loss of freedom) in more serious criminal matters.
But if AI performs better at making legal arguments — which it certainly will in due time — why would a working or middle-class defendant shell out thousands of extra dollars for a subpar human lawyer instead?
The only way AI counsel stays limited to traffic court is if the lawyer lobby successfully rigs the laws to protect their own jobs while allowing every other industry to go the automated route. Which they certainly will try.
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