By: Jake Anderson
Got a bullshit
parking ticket? Now you can appeal it in less than a minute. The new chatbot
tool,DoNotPay, uses previously successful appeal letters to draw up a
customized template, allowing users to avoid courts, legal fees, stress, and
having to use a lawyer.
So far, the free
app has overturned 160,000 parking tickets in London and New York. With a
success rate of 64%,DoNotPay has appealed $4 million in parking fines in just
two cities in only nine months of operation. In 2014, New York City collected $546 million in revenue from parking tickets.
Stanford freshman
Joshua Bowder created the app after spending an exorbitant amount of time
crafting his own appeals for parking tickets. He read thousands of pages of
documents related to parking tickets released under the Freedom of Information
Act and consulted a traffic lawyer. Then, using PHP and Javascript, he created
a conversation algorithm that aggregates keywords, pronouns, and word order.
Like many chatbots, Browder’s app becomes more intelligent each time it is
used.
DoNotPay is not
commercial and Josh plans to keep it that way. In an interview with Anti-Media,
Josh said he was driven by a sense of social justice and a desire to help
vulnerable people who are exploited by policing-for-profit schemes. Josh also
wants to use technology like artificial intelligence for humanitarian purposes.
He finds it
“irritating and disappointing” that bots are usually created for vapid
commercial uses. In reality, he says, algorithmic intelligence and chatbots are
a “humanitarian goldmine.”
DoNotPay also
assists with delayed or canceled flights, payment-protection insurance (PPI)
claims, and even legally disclosing an HIV-positive health status.
Josh describes his
creation as “the first robot lawyer.” People are describing him as the “Robin Hood of the Internet.”
“If it is one day
possible for any citizen to get the same standard of legal representation as a
billionaire,” Browder says,“how can that not be a good thing?”
Josh says
government agencies have actually been supportive, even using it to test for
glitches. He also received support from his friends, one of whom he says has
created an app for scanning blood to test for the likelihood of malaria.
Josh wants to
continue developing artificial intelligence applications for the public good.
He’s spoken with entrepreneurs about how to use apps like this in conjunction
with driverless cars.
What’s on the
horizon? Josh’s summer project is an app to help Syrian refugees seek legal
asylum. The chatbot he is planning would translate Arabic to English and then
draw up legal paperwork.
Josh also plans to expand DoNotPay to
Seattle.
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