> It’s more likely that the AI would free up public defendants from things like having to answer their clients’ questions, as they could just ask the AI, allowing them to be more effective

Public defenders would be more effective if they didn't have to talk to their clients?

I read it more as, clients have a mix of questions. Clients don’t go through the system everyday and likely have some general worries and procedural questions as a result. Clients also have a case and need to coordinate with their lawyer. AI could enable more of the latter to happen within the limited time the lawyer has for each client.

Seems like that problem could be fixed by giving clients a brochure and a video to watch that explains everything.

Sorry, I can’t ever write clearly on the phone, this site is very mobile-unfriendly. I meant that defendants would be able to talk to the AI about their case to learn as much as they want. A public defender can’t commit that much time to each of their cases.

The problem with this is "how do you assure the AI isn't bold face lying to the defendant".

For a natural text generation/chat system like ChatGPT, at the moment this is effectively impossible and frankly I don't see it being sufficiently fixed for something as complex as teaching law to a non-law-student any time in the near future.

So you make this as understood as possible and the lawyer can fill in the gaps and clarify.

It's not like a "jailhouse lawyer" will do any better. Though it might cost something you didn't expect, such as a new witness against you or a shower pal.

I think these discussions always seem focused on the ideal state of the "AI is perfect and gives correct answers" and not the current state where the "AI constructs sentences that are structured correctly, but are filled with inaccuracies and illogical nonsense."

If we want to steelman AI why shouldn’t we also steelman the court system? Assuming a perfect AI is about the same as assuming a well functioning court system. Otherwise we should be assuming a flawed, potentially racist, confidently incorrect AI vs a flawed, excessively slow, definitely racist court system.

I don't see how it's the same.

> If poor people can only get the bot, that means the Constitution was changed.

The Constitution is already pushed beyond all reason for poor people anyway. You might have a "right" to a public defender, but good luck getting them to spend much more than 10 minutes on your case. (https://www.mprnews.org/story/2010/11/29/public-defenders) They're so overworked that it can be impossible for them to spend more than a tiny fraction of the time they actually need to do their job (https://www.kansascity.com/news/local/crime/article237036919...).

In the same way you have a "right" to speedy trial, but unless you're rich you can spend years (or even a decade) waiting behind bars (https://www.thecity.nyc/2022/8/17/23310771/why-some-spend-ye...).

It seems like we've already decided that if you can't pay the court fees you aren't entitled to access to our "justice" system (https://digitalcommons.law.seattleu.edu/sulr/vol44/iss3/11/)

I don't think it's too far fetched to imagine the courts telling poor people they have to settle for an AI to represent them unless they can fork over the money to hire one themselves.

If an AI is just as capable (if not more capable) than a real lawyer, we'll be seeing rich people and corporations using them instead of humans. Until we see that, I'll assume that if poor people are forced (by law or finances) to use them they'll be getting the short end of the stick.