"Multiple state bar associations have threatened us," Browder said. "One even said a referral to the district attorney's office and prosecution and prison time would be possible."
"The truth is, most people can't afford lawyers," he said. "This could've shifted the balance and allowed people to use tools like ChatGPT in the courtroom that maybe could've helped them win cases."
Cant have robot stealing jobs from lawyers, can you imagine a machine replacing you with no prospect of compensation? What kind of society does that with the threat of poverty 🤔.
Why? Law-talking-guys gotta make money too, they are workers. Yes, it's a largely made-up and unnecessary industry, but so are most.
For myself I would say it's more that unfortunately the system has a giant gaping hole in it, and it's the poor who are falling through that hole. There aren't nearly enough public defenders to represent the many, many poor folk who need them, and if this system keeps people out of jail and/or prison, I'm fine with supporting them over lawyers. I wish lawyers the best as they're also workers, but unlike real life luddites, there are lives depending on the outcome of trials. People who go to prison as good people can come out the other side broken and so much worse for the experience. The justice system has so many flaws in it, it's unreal; cops being incentivized to make an arrest vs actually solving a crime, prosecutors being on unethically good terms with police, defendants having to rely on public defenders and all the issues that brings (I read a case a while back of someone whose public defender was on drugs at the time of his trials and was absolutely unable to represent him well), etc.
If people's lives didn't depend on the outcome of a court, I'd be fine with supporting lawyers, but unfortunately it does.
Much as I don't personally see the overall incarceration rates of good people depending in any way on the availability of an entity able to produce a legible defense; I could be wrong, and get the point, seems a fair position.
How many people froze to death in rags because Luddites smashed the looms that made clothing affordable?
you know what, that's a good point, and I can't think of good counterargument, except maybe that deprofessionalization would push them into solidarity with the unskilled working class. I will say, though, that I think defense of the professions from technological obsoletion is less critical because, as detailed in the article, they are not nearly as threatened by it. They are already more organized in bar associations against such industrial threats, so that even if some of their work could be automated, they have a force of arms against it that the labor unionist left doesn't have the resources to meaningfully contribute to anyway.