Can a lawyer be replaced by artificial intelligence? This has been the question for a few days, since a start-up from Lyon launched I.Avocat on January 1.
This application offers the possibility of receiving legal advice with answers generated by artificial intelligence. Dreamed up by a 35-year-old businessman from Lyon, it quickly attracted the ire of lawyers everywhere.
AI-generated legal advice
It must be said that I.Avocat does not lack promises and superlatives in its description. Thus, we are told that we will receive “quick and accurate legal responses” as well as “an exceptional legal experience”, responding to “all concerns.” However, as it stands, he is not a real lawyer and the app can only provide simple legal advice, even if the AI generates its answers based on 50 years of legal decisions, but also school and court programs.
The concept is attractive, especially in areas where legal aid, which allows obtaining free or lower-cost assistance, is rare. However, it is still paid: count 69 euros per year or 9 euros per month (this offer is not yet available). It is also not possible to test AI skills without subscribing first.
But several lawyers and legal specialists are already pointing out possible abuses. Questioned by Le Progrès, maître Jean-Bernard Prouvez explains that although i.Avocat can be “a help”, it is not made to replace the human being. The same observation is made by lawyer Foudeil Benazout, who believes that one must “work with the machine and not against it”, while highlighting the risks of deceiving the victim.
A company based in Dubai
The name of the app would also raise ethical and confidentiality issues. Although the secrecy of the investigation is one of the rules of law, files can be imported for AI to analyze a case. No certainty about the destination of the data. A quick inspection reveals that the headquarters of this startup is located in Dubai.
Finally, it is the communication around the project that poses a problem for the profession. In a promotional video broadcast by BFM Lyon, we can see controversial slogans: “where a lawyer would take a year, it takes me a minute, where a lawyer would have cost you 1,000 euros, it only cost me 69 euros.”
A provocation claimed by the creator of the application: “It was to create a bad stir, we had to do it. There are 10,000 applications per day that come out (…) in order not to go unnoticed, we wanted to excite this professional body, when in reality we work in close collaboration with them.”
Given the prevailing emotion in the profession, the Paris bar association took action on the matter and notified the Lyon businessman, ordering him to remove I.Avocat from the application stores.
Source: BFM TV
