The city of New York launched a chatbot on its website which was powered by the AI technology of Microsoft Azure to help users easily exchange information with small business owners and to make city regulations easy and simple.
The intelligent chat bot was conceived as a singlestop in the sea of city laws and regulations, but instead of providing valuable information it has generated a growing hot debate over the accuracy and, more often than not, absurd advices.
The impact of Chatbots on legal guidance
The role of misguided advice and legal challenges cannot be overstated in the daily obstacles faced by startups. This instance is the main objective of the chatbot to act as a“real time” virtual assistant to businessmen, solving their bureaucratic problems including questions on the city regulations.
The guidelines have also failed in achieving their objectives by their misweighting of legal standards, which are even contravention to New York City laws in some cases.
Discovery and confirmation, including the tests run by the Markup, showed that the chatbot’s advice comprised varying from the illegal – telling the employers about stealing tips and sexual discrimination based on pregnancy – to the bizarre, for example, when the bot stated openly that it is allowable to test food pecked by rats.
The error may come in various areas like domestic policy, workers compensation, and business operations that decrease the chatbot dependability as a legal resource.
One of the examples is when employers were falsely informed that they can run businesses that allow only electronic means of payment and that there are no rules for worker tips. Landlords were issued with faulty guidance on evicting tenants and the disrespect of income sources such as Veteran Affairs Supportive Housing vouchers. The same type of recommendations not only hampers the legal status of companies, which is a breach of ethics, but also carries with it an ethical issue.
Balancing innovation and responsibility in AI deployment
Than the negative menace of the technology, for instance biases, getting systematized, and going out of control, the supporters of AI in NYC, such as the Mayor Eric Adams amongst others defend the proposed technology implementation.
Mayor Adams who stresses the fact that for all we know, technological advancement is a long process that has to be perfected through continuous attempts, advices us to be more persistent with the chatbot.
Such position, as you might expect, not only does it lack acceptance but as well fails to gain recognition. Critics, headed by Julia Stoyanovich, who holds the position of computer science professor and director at the Center for Responsible AI at New York University, claimed that administrative hush-up of the software that was still unfolded without systematic checking mirrored an indifference to responsible governance.
Being only software, the chatbot could make some mistakes or have inherent biases. However, the city’s decision to keep the chatbot running and start the conversation with the disclaimer that the bot’s advice might not be always accurate, shifts the responsibility of verifying the data onto the users.
This issue has therefore sparked an debate on as to whether there should be enough mechanisms to ensure the AI is not deployed where it is not accurate for regulatory purposes.
Small business owners implementation plan
The plight of New York City entrepreneurs signal a proverbial ‘red flag’; even tech with AI as a basis faces the problem of the reliability. AI has the ability to reduce bureaucracy, but the chatbot’s mistakes feature pieces of accuracy and reliability indispensable in public sector uses.
Owners of small companies facing verbal acrobatics of city bylaws will find an instance when the bot program can make misuse of AI advices as a button to a manual assessment. Experts suggest that there is a need to have human legal professionals for the matters of compliance and regulation while, at the same time, taking the hints received from the chatbot as the preliminary, not definitive, solutions.
All in all, the show suggests a new paradigm for the city’s AI experiment, adopting the necessary strategic reforms before beginning similar technological interventions in their jurisdiction. Ultimately, the balance between innovation and responsibility looks to the core of the issue which can either contribute to the integrity of public services or jeopardize the trust of the community.
NYC’s authorities are still undeterred by technology and they still support their AI chatbot which could provide useful lessons on the need for privacy protections. When it comes to AI to public interest serving, it should be deployed in a responsible way, along with the crucial of transparency and with the goal of constant improvement.
On the other hand, such resources can be used with the healthy dose of apprehension by small business owners. They should rather yield to traditional legal sources and seek advice from them.
