Tech to Help Those in Need
You must have heard mention around the web about the increasing use of so-called chatbots. For the record, a chatbot is nothing more than a computer program specifically engineered to conduct conversations in real time using either auditory or text responses to queries. These chatbot programs are designed to mimic the expected response as if the respondent were an actual human on the other end. Naturally, the early adopters of chatbot technology included customer service providers.
With that in mind, you may be pleasantly surprised there is a newly available chatbot on the market by the name of DoNotPay. Note the DoNotPay is a chatbot designed to assist refugees with legal claims. Interestingly, the first iteration of DoNotPay was set up to assist people with parking tickets or speeding tickets.
This chatbot was designed by Joshua Browder, a current student at Standford University. According to Browder, hundreds of thousands of people have used the DoNotPay chatbot to effectively challenge parking and speeding tickets. According to Browder, his own frustrations with traffic officers motivated his creation of DoNotPay.
Per Browder: “When I started driving at 18, I began to receive a large number of parking tickets and created the service as a side project. I could never have imagined that just over a year later, it would successfully appeal over 250,000 tickets.
Recognizing the utility of an app such as DoNotPay, Browder next turned his attention to the growing numbers of refugee and asylum seekers. In this version of DoNotPay, which he refers to as :”…the world’s first robot lawyer”, the chatbot is configured to use Facebook Messenger. Once activated, DoNotPay gathers vital information using either spoken or typed commands (texts). Next, the DoNotPay app goes to work pulling together the necessary advice as well as the required legal documents.
When you stop to consider that most likely the vast majority of those seeking asylum as refugees arrive with no clear direction as to how to make such a claim, you can understand just how revolutionary the DoNotPay chatbot is. Pay attention to the fact that as of this writing, the DoNotPay chatbot is already at work in both the U.S. as well as Canada helping would be immigrants complete the necessary paperwork. Furthermore, over in the U.K., the DoNotPay is assisting asylum seekers to solicit financial support.
Talk about a disruptive technology that is serving a growing need! Wow! The DoNotPay is most definitely a clear example of technology already assisting those in need.
