It's not equivalent at all. ChatGPT and DaVinci have not "studied the law" in the same way as any human would.
> If law firms believed it was bullshit, they would just put a very good attorney on that case and disprove it. Barring it from entry with threat of jailtime pretty much proves that they are full of shit and they know it.
This is a traffic ticket case. He's not up against Sullivan & Cromwell, he's up against some local prosecutor. I'm sure if some white shoe law firm were being paid hundreds of thousands to defend a case against a guy using ChatGPT, they'd be fine with it.
Even though we have an adversarial system, the state can't just let ordinary folk hang themselves with cheap half-baked "solutions". It would be unjust/bad press (delete as appropriate to your level of cynicism). That's why we have licensing requirements, etc.
Why hasn't the practice of self-representation been banned then? It's almost without exception a surefire way to hang oneself in a court room.
And any lawyer that can go against gpt3 and win will be a net benefit to the whole law community, showing that lawyers are worth the money.
"The person challenging a speeding ticket would wear smart glasses that both record court proceedings and dictate responses into the defendant's ear from a small speaker. The system relied on a few leading AI text generators, including ChatGPT and DaVinci."
I.e its equivalent of a person effectively studying the actual law and then representing themselves in court, just in a more optimal manner.
Even if it fails, it was supposed to be something trivial like a speeding ticket, because after all, this is a test.
And funny enough, the answer of will it work has already been answered. If law firms believed it was bullshit, they would just put a very good attorney on that case and disprove it. Barring it from entry with threat of jailtime pretty much proves that they are full of shit and they know it.