Joshua Browder was drowning in parking fines when he realized the British government’s labyrinthine appeals process could be navigated more quickly by software than by a person. As a teenager he built the DoNotPay app to do just that. But three years later, Browder has much bigger ambitions: He’d like to see robot lawyers replace humans, doing all manner of legal work for (virtually) free.
Now 21, the Stanford-trained wunderkind is developing artificial intelligence-driven algorithms to help American and British residents navigate the web of laws that can turn a small mistake, such as a traffic ticket accidentally left unpaid, into a bench warrant. And he’s particularly interested in helping people make sense of the two countries’ immigration systems.
“One of the biggest projects we have coming up is helping people who need to get their relatives into the United States legally,” he says. “In the past we’ve also helped refugees claim asylum in the U.K., and also helped homeless people claim government housing. All of these processes are so bureaucratic that if you have no resources at all, it really is impossible to get the help you need.”
In August, Browder spoke to Reason‘s Justin Monticello at his team’s Palo Alto headquarters—the same house Mark Zuckerberg rented during his first summer there—about the project.
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