That bot that helped you with parking tickets? It can now provide legal aid to the homeless

A Stanford undergrad's AI-based chatbot has already helped us with our parking tickets and various legal issues, but now his DoNotPay bot is taking on an even bigger, trickier issue. 

After receiving acclaim for the bot, which challenged over 160,000 tickets, Joshua Browder taught the program how to help homeless people in the UK claim their right to public housing. 

The user simply asks for help, and the bot will ask them a series of questions to determine how best to help them. Usually this will involve crafting a claim letter, which the bot fills in with the information that's been provided. In the end, people can save hundreds of dollars in legal advising fees when they need that money the most.

The UK native developed the bot last year at 18 years old. He had just started to drive and was collecting parking tickets. He couldn't afford so many infractions, and the DoNotPay bot was born. 

Since then, he's gotten messages about evictions and repossessions, and, as he told The Washington Post, he noticed they were at their highest levels in the UK. Browder then reached out to a group of volunteer lawyers who helped him craft the bot to offer legal aid for homeless people. 

He also used the Freedom of Information Act (commonly known as FOIA) to look for trends in why applications were approved or denied — a public housing applicant who has a mental illness, for example, is considered especially vulnerable and in more dire need of housing. Browder and the lawyers would then draft application letters that the bot could adjust to include more information from a user. 

He hopes to expand to the U.S. by the end of the year, but this comes with a whole new set of challenges. "The main problem is that though the issue of homelessness is universal, the underlying reason behind it differs from place to place," he said.

For instance, in the UK, people have a guaranteed right to housing by the government, and the bot typically helps them file claim letters. In the U.S., housing laws vary by city: in New York, the bot will help people understand their rights on bankruptcy and eviction, and could help them make a court letter to prevent a repossession. On the other hand, in San Francisco, the bot needs to find affordable and government-subsidized housing.  

Then there's a question of scale. While San Francisco has the second-largest homeless population at over 7,500, New York's is closer to 60,000 people. And catering to that many people's varied needs is going to put a lot of strain on the bot. Critics say the bot isn't well-equipped to handle these complexities, and at the time, there is no referral process to human housing groups or lawyers. 

"It's a long road ahead, but I think so many people are being exploited, both by lawyers and by morally dubious landlords, that somebody has to do it" he said. "At the moment, there is no alternative for some people, if they can't afford to pay a lawyer hundreds of dollars. My ultimate aim is to level the playing field."

In the future, Browder wants to expand his parking ticket bot, as well as its capabilities for consumer rights issues. It currently answers user questions about delayed flights and unfair bank charges. 

He's also developing an immigration bot to help Syrian asylum seekers, though he's hoping to partner with a referral organization if the issue is too complicated. He's working on that one full time, and plans to have it done by the end of September. 

"If you can provide a service that was previously unavailable and people use and love it," he said, "Then it must be a step in the right direction."