Students create AI lawyer
A team of Cambridge University students have developed an online lawyer robot who gives free advice to victims of crime.
LawBot is an artificial intelligence system designed to help people who need to find out more about their rights and how the justice system can aid them. The LawBot team say it’s the world’s most advanced chatbot lawyer.
It launched just two weeks ago, and although it’s still in beta, the team behind LawBot have seen it gather 15,000 interactions.
It’s the brainchild of Ludwig Bull, who developed the system after he spent the summer in Japan and after working for a think-tank in Cambridge.
He recruited the rest of the team on the Cambridge University Law Society Facebook page.
The team is now 10 people strong and say LawBot is a labour of love.
Ludwig said that Cambridge was the best place to look for bright, intellectual people with whom to embark on this venture.
“That’s the great thing about Cambridge: people want to be tackling important issues and do something cool,” he said.
“We’re really trying to provide a service to people who are not familiar with law.
“A lot of people have been wondering if artificial intelligence and robots will replace lawyers, but we think it’s going to drive people towards using lawyers.
“It may interest lawyers at some point, but there are a huge proportion of people around the UK that don’t think that they have been victims of a crime and there’s no way to find out.
“Right now we’re doing crime, but we’re going to expand into other areas of law and the law of different countries.
“We’re slowly getting to people who are not just trying it out but using it for the service it provides.”
