Creator of Chatbot that Beat 160K Parking Fines Now Tackling Homelessness (theguardian.com) 93
An anonymous reader writes: The chatbot lawyer that overturned hundreds and thousands of parking tickets is now tackling another problem: homelessness. London-born Stanford student Joshua Browder created DoNotPay initially to help people appeal against fines for unpaid parking tickets. Dubbed "the world's first robot lawyer", Browder later programmed it to deal with a wider range of legal issues, such as claiming for delayed flights and trains and payment protection insurance (PPI). Now, Browder, 19, wants his chatbot to provide free legal aid to people facing homelessness. He said: "I never could have imagined a parking ticket bot would appeal so much to people. Then I realised: this issue is bigger than a few parking tickets." In an interview with the Washington Post, the 19-year-old said he decided to expand the bot's capabilities after DoNotPay began receiving messages about evictions and repossessions. In February this year tenant evictions reached the highest on record.
Re:Leftists at it again (Score:5, Interesting)
The US Legal system has a few issues.
1. Most of the law makers are also lawyers. Just as I am a Computer Scientist and I think things can get better if you just fix the process, a trained Lawyer will think to just adding new laws or changing a law will fix all of the problems.
2. Many fines are a source of revenue for the government. While they may give an impassioned speech on how such laws are protecting people. While they are just filling the point of bringing in additional revenue.
3. Laws to help the poor are so complex that only the rich can take advantage of them. Lets put being PC aside for a bit. Often the reason why Poor people are poor is because their actions are not ideal. Such as taking drugs, getting into trouble, or just being lazy. So many of these laws are written for the mythical angle who just seemed to not be able to make it. And when social services are given to people don't seem to deserve it, it gets a lot of heat. So they put a lot of hooks in these laws to prevent abuse that it is nearly impossible for people to take advantage of them.
Re: Leftists at it again (Score:2)
I wouldn't say that. Just yesterday I was downtown for jury duty and noticed a guy holding up a sign that says "need food", presumably under the premise of getting handouts from jurors routinely passing through.
The thing is, just around the corner is one of those shelters that freely give out all of the food and clothing you could ask for. I guarantee you that this guy knows that, and if you were to offer him a choice of money or food, which do you think he'd opt for?
And the reason for that is he doesn't wa
Re: Leftists at it again (Score:2)
I already know that's not true for this particular place because it's a church organization that will give to just anybody who asks.
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The best way to help homeless people, in my opinion, is to only give them food and clothing and nothing else
Except they already have access to food from shelters or other places. They do not need (or like you said want) food from you. The best thing you can do is give them nothing, and instead support the agencies whose job it is to help them by providing job and housing placement assistance (among many other things).
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You sound like a Dalek middle manager overseeing the human concentration camps.
What Do You Call 100 Lawyers Replaced by a Robot? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:What Do You Call 100 Lawyers Replaced by a Robo (Score:5, Funny)
Yeah but there are probably still immoral things that a robot won't do for money so we will still need lawyers.
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Only the innocent need a lawyer, the guilty can lie for themselves.
Abraham Lincoln
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Humans Need Not Apply (Score:4, Interesting)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
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i am a 67 year old man who lives alone because his wife died and his children live in other states. When I look to the future I still see many needs for me. There is cleaning the house and me. There is mowing the grass in the summer and keeping the sidewalks and driveway free from snow in the winter. There is also raking the leaves in the fall. There is also cooking my food. There is maintaining the house I live in. Now I do not see any type of robots doing any of that work in the near future. I cou
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Look forward to the letters from the law office of Dewey, Cheatem and HAL.
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Just my thought. I mean it is not as if they could do a much worse job or be more expensive.
How is this a good thing? (Score:5, Insightful)
Non-paying tenants are the scum of the earth. They are literally taking food out of the mouths of their landlords. The landlord-tenant courts are absurdly pro-tenant as is and delay evictions for 6-12 months as a matter of course as is. Most landlords are not Donald Trumps. They are middle class people who own 1-3 units. A single non-paying tenant can and often does put them on the brink of bankruptcy. This isn't a good thing. People who cant afford their housing need to move and find cheaper housing. They shouldn't get 6-12 months at someone else's expense to do it.
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I've started using the phrase 'I FIGURATIVELY...' eg: 'Your comment is so funny I FIGURATIVELY died laughing!" I hope it catches on. If it doesn't I will literally loose my mind.
Re:How is this a good thing? (Score:5, Informative)
I don't see anything in the article about the bot fighting evictions of non-paying tenants. It's talking about helping people who are already homeless to successfully apply for emergency council housing, and helping them get in touch with housing charities.
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Right, I feel really sorry for the landlord who has enough money to buy two houses, taking food out of his mouth is *terrible* compared to taking food out of the mouth of the person who can't even afford the basics of staying in some shelter somewhere.
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1) Many landlords don't have "enough" money, they take out loans (and have to pay them back using rental income) to buy rental properties.
2) Why should the landlord be responsible for providing rent-free housing for their tenants? Some of whom are perfectly c
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Note - I never said "I think it's reasonable to not pay a landlord". Instead, merely pointed out that phrasing it as "look at that bastard taking food out of the landlord's mouth" is pretty ridiculous when you've got someone too poor to pay for shelter on the other end of the equation.
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taking food out of his mouth is *terrible* compared to taking food out of the mouth of the person who can't even afford the basics of staying in some shelter somewhere.
It doesn't work that way. Rentals are a business, and they will be priced to make an acceptable return on investment. So if tenants have a "right" to stay in the property without paying rent, that cost will be built into the rent, and paid by the other tenants. It also means that people with poor credit will not be allowed to rent even if they have the money. If you look at jurisdictions with strong tenant rights, such as SF or NYC, they also have high rents and onerous tenant application processes. In
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Having been a Landlord. They also need to take the ethical concerns on what service they are offering. And like many highly regulated areas, it is because there had been historical abuse in such field.
As a landlord you are offering a key part of a person's survival and well being. Now the landlord had cases where they evict people for a bunch of stupid reasons. And without such legal reasons the person will get kicked out and the apartment will get replaced well before any legal action can happen. So the
Re:How is this a good thing? (Score:5, Interesting)
The solution to this is any one of the following:
1. only be a landlord in areas without those silly requirements
2. charge a rent high enough to cover such eventualities
You've basically explained exactly why rents in SF are so high. SImply not worth the hassle, try your luck in Denver or any Texas city....
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Non-paying tenants are the scum of the earth. They are literally taking food out of the mouths of their landlords.
Landlords are the scum of the earth. They are literally keeping others under their foot for their own profit.
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Many things in SF aren't rent controlled. Among other things, anything newer than June 13, 1979, which is a lot since SF had a boom starting in the 90s of new condo-like construction.
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You wot mate?
I like renting. I'm lazy, and I like problems to be someone else's. I value the service provided, not just by the property management company that that replaces the water heater and takes car of the greenery and roofing work without any effort from me, but the property owner, who provides the up-front capital so I don't have to. Sure, I could buy a condo, but I don't want the risk, so I'm glad someone else does.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
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How is wanting you to pay your rent on time, as you agreed to, racist???
If renters cannot pay the rent, buh-bye. Just like if you cannot afford an iPhone, you don't get one because you a not white. You don't get one because you don't pay.
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But Apple is greedy in lots of ways, just consider how much they collect from premium games, they could have avoided that, but they didn't, and there's a lot of people who don't have the nerve to fight their gambits.
You are profoundly confused about the nature of the world. The goal of a business is to make money. They will maximize profits however they can within the law. Doing anything else is a poorly managed business. Apple can't be "greedy" any more than a grizzly bear can be a murderer.
Re:the problem is jackboot landlords. (Score:4, Interesting)
Citation: http://www.theatlantic.com/mag... [theatlantic.com]
Re:the problem is jackboot landlords. (Score:5, Insightful)
Section 8, as designed, is a welfare program that anyone (conservative, liberal, whatever) can get behind. It was the proverbial "hand up, not a hand out" that was designed to move people out of projects, where opportunity was low (at best) and into situations where they could truly benefit themselves. The original participants were chosen very carefully, and were tightly screened. They looked for people who wanted to work. People who kept neat houses and took care of their kids. When they were enrolled in the program, they were followed up on to check their progress and ensure they were doing their part. The program was a massive success--the people it helped had overwhelmingly positive outcomes.
What we have today is a result of it being a victim of its own success. Because it was so successful, scads of money was thrown at the program in an attempt to expand it to more people. Today, just about ANYONE who meets the income requirements can get on section 8 (it is awarded typically by lottery), there is no screening, no followup, or anything else. Its use has (as your citations notes) exported crime from the high crime areas to the low crime areas, all under the guise of "equality" (where everyone lives an equally shitty life, I guess?) it's basically the inverse of the "villas at Kenny's House" gag on South Park, with predictable results.
I (strongly!) support section 8, but as it was originally designed and implemented, and not the gigantic mess we have today. If you still want me to die as a result, then (with equal civility) I suggest that you go fuck yourself.
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Today, just about ANYONE who meets the income requirements can get on section 8 (it is awarded typically by lottery), there is no screening, no followup, or anything else. Its use has (as your citations notes) exported crime from the high crime areas to the low crime areas, all under the guise of "equality" (where everyone lives an equally shitty life, I guess?) it's basically the inverse of the "villas at Kenny's House" gag on South Park, with predictable results.I (strongly!) support section 8, but as it was originally designed and implemented, and not the gigantic mess we have today.
Why do you strongly support a program that is by your own admission a gigantic mess?
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As
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Thank you for your return to civility.
To reply to something you said upthread: I agree teaching people to fish that far, far preferable to providing them daily fish rations. Sometimes, though, you're faced with people who live in the middle of a desert, where teaching them to fish just isn't feasible, and is never going to be. At that point, you can either feed them on the journey out of the desert, or just leave them to die. To me, there is no choice between the two.
To goal of all welfare programs should
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My ex-wife and two of her siblings range between 27 and 35 years old and are all in section 8 housing.
None do crime or are on drugs. They are, however, in a town where the jobs don't pay enough to match real estate prices
Funny how supply and demand work out, isn't it. And by funny I mean "entirely predictable". Without the government prop, something would have to give - you can't have housing that no one can afford for long (see: 2008).
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I clicked on the link. I didn't get beyond the first line: "Why is crime rising in so many American cities?" An article that starts with a line that, while it may be true, is highly misleading and intended to deceive, or perhaps just pander to existing biases is not an article that can be taken as a reliable citation.
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No, I just don't want to be bothered reading an article that starts with what is effectively a falsehood: that crime is rising. It isn't. I don't want to be bothered reading an article that is obviously not based on reality.
There may be some cities where crime is rising (hence justifying the misleading claim), but overall it is falling.
When you make a disingenuous claim in your f
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the problem is lawlessness (Score:2)
All people have rights.
Do I have the right to live in a safe and quiet neighborhood? It seems from your argument the answer is no, that it should be illegal to try and keep "sectarian violence and outright block warfare" away.
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If you have that right, then so do the people living in those neighborhoods you look down on. But sounds like you already got yours.
How is it the posters responsibility to fix neighborhoods? You can't exactly go door to door and shoot gang members even when you know full well who they are. The best that an individual can do is leave. I'm not clear why you criticize him for wanting to lead a peaceful life. How would you propose the poster fix things?
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to fix the homeless crisis in america means we need to address things like systemic racism, the boom bust cycle of poverty and inequality in american capitalism, and the ability for landed gentry to impose arbitrary restriction on any number of free living conditions to police and enforce what essentially turn into their own mini cities and states.
No. What we have to fix is the political process. The majority of states can legally use eminent domain to seize empty homes from banks and give them to the homeless, which is precisely what should be done when (as now) the banks refuse to sell the properties for what the market will bear. We know that's what they are doing beyond any shadow of a doubt because there are literally multiple empty homes for every homeless man, woman, and child in this nation.
Many of our state governments have the power to addr
Lawyers don’t want to deal with this crap, t (Score:4, Interesting)
This isn’t putting any layers out of work. How many do you think want to deal with minor parking and traffic violations? The more interesting cases are personal injury, criminal, IP, and other things where somebody has deep pockets. Heck, most of the time, people don’t involve lawyers in small claims, because it’s not cost-effective.
Who besides the ticket-writers and land lords wouldn’t be chearing for some online legal help? Actually, all the information you’d need to handle these cases was already online; all this does is automate it for you. Not to downplay this, though. Lots of apps have complicated interfaces to do things, but sometimes it’s really nice to have one of those “wizard” dialogues to help you get it started by asking all the right questions.
Definitely need this in the US (Score:2)
Civil asset forfeiture, foreclosure fraud, drug offenses, IRS, no fly lists, Our 100 mile "constitution free zone", for almost any non responsive government bureaucracy, the list goes on...
It's an equalizer (Score:3)
The people writing tickets - and prosecuting them - do it thousands of time a year. Most people defending against them do it once a year or less. Apps like this just put defendants on a more even footing with prosecutors in terms of knowing the law.
Prosecutors may complain, but if your argument is that you prefer when people don't know the law, you deserve to lose.
Foolish Notions (Score:2)
Chatbot for landlords (Score:2)