Free service DoNotPay helps appeal over $4m in parking fines in just 21 months, but is just the tip of the legal AI iceberg for its 19-year-old creator 
 
 An artificial-intelligence lawyer chatbot has successfully contested 160,000 parking tickets across London and New York for free, showing that chatbots can actually be useful. 
 
 
 
 Dubbed as “the world’s first robot lawyer” by its 19-year-old creator, London-born second-year Stanford University student Joshua Browder, DoNotPay helps users contest parking tickets in an easy to use chat-like interface. 
 
 The program first works out whether an appeal is possible through a series of simple questions, such as were there clearly visible parking signs, and then guides users through the appeals process. 
 
 The results speak for themselves. In the 21 months since the free service was launched in London and now New York, Browder says DoNotPay has taken on 250,000 cases and won 160,000, giving it a success rate of 64% appealing over $4m of parking tickets. 
 
 “I think the people getting parking tickets are the most vulnerable in society. These people aren’t looking to break the law. I think they’re being exploited as a revenue source by the local government,” Browder told Venture Beat. 
 
 The bot was created by the self-taught coder after receiving 30 parking tickets at the age of 18 in and around London. The process for appealing the fines is relatively formulaic and perfectly suits AI, which is able to quickly drill down and give the appropriate advice without charging lawyers fees. 
 
 Joshua Browder (@jbrowder1) It always brightens my day to receive these emails. I wish the local governments would just follow the rules pic.twitter.com/1gz6NjYSs3 
 
 Browder intends to expand DoNotPay to Seattle next. But having started with parking tickets, Browder’s next challenge for the AI lawyer is helping people with flight delay compensation, as well as helping the HIV positive understand their rights and acting as a guide for refugees navigating foreign legal systems. 
 
 At the same time, Browder is exploring a developer platform that only requires legal knowledge, not a coding background, which could spawn further useful chatbots to help dispense simple legal advice without exorbitant fees. 
 
 At the very least, Browder’s robot lawyer shows that chatbots can be used for more than just ordering pizza or being spammed by news organisations. ||||| Speaking about parking tickets, Donald Trump, HIV/AIDs and career politicians in a TechCrunch Interview with Andrew Keen. 
 
 It was such a pleasure to chat with Andrew Keen for TechCrunch’s INNOVATE 2016 Series. 
 
 AK: So we do most of our INNOVATE 2016 interviews at the Innovation Hanger in San Francisco, a very cool venue. We are here today with Josh Browder, a very innovative young entrepeneur. We are using this background, which, actually, the Innovation Hanger is promoting in association with its Hunger Games exhibit: “what future will you create?” A lot of this show has been about the idea of Washington D.C creating the future, but in Silicon Valley we are very good at creating the future. One guy who is doing a remarkable job, especially for someone of his tender age, is Josh Browder. Josh, welcome to INNOVATE2016. 
 
 JB: Thanks so much for having me. 
 
 AK: So Josh, you are an undergrad at Stanford and second year student? 
 
 JB: Going into my second year, yes. 
 
 AK: And the quintessential startup guy. You have developed a number of successful apps. One of which is an app for paying and fighting parking tickets, which maybe you will talk about later in the show. But the one I really want to talk to you about is your application of blockchain with HIV. I know this is a particularly interesting issue. We have had the Tapscotts on the show talking about the impact of blockchain, but they never talk specifically. What are you doing using blockchain to innovate and create a future that we all want? 
 
 JB: Sure. Well in this country there’s a huge problem at the moment with discrimination against those with HIV and AIDS. If you have HIV — I have several friends who have HIV — 
 
 AK: HIV positive? 
 
 JB: — HIV positive exactly. There’s this huge problem where you have to prove to all your sexual partners that you have disclosed. Often, there are these huge miscarriages of justice where there’s some mix-up and it’s not clear whether the person has actually said, “I’m HIV positive.” So what I’ve done, using the blockchain, is to allow those who are HIV positive to prove in under 30 seconds that they have disclosed through a permanent and anyonymous record. It requires no technical knowledge. 
 
 AK: So, in this way, blockchain is being used in an incredibly innovative way for the social good? 
 
 JB: Exactly. The thing is with these cases is that they often arrive 20 or 30 years after the incident. The problem with that is companies disappear, records disappear, but the blockchain is permanent, which is why it is so powerful. 
 
 AK: So, you agree with the Tapscotts that the blockchain is essentially the thing that’s going to change everything? 
 
 JB: Absolutely. I think that it has already changed financial technology a lot, but it also can have a big impact in the law and that’s just starting to surface. 
 
 AK: Talk a little bit also about your app. We first met at DLD New York where you were talking about your parking ticket app, which was incredibly innovative. 
 
 JB: Sure. At the age of 18, the legal driving age in the UK, I got a few parking tickets… 
 
 AK: A few? How many Josh in truth. 
 
 JB: Too many to count. I think around 30 at the end of it. 
 
 AK: So, you were this tech guy who was so absent minded that wherever you park you pick up tickets? 
 
 JB: Yes. I decided that instead of paying for them, I should try and fight. Some were correctly issued and I paid for those. But for the ones that were incorrect, I decided to create an app to help people find the reasons why they were incorrectly given and fight them. I created it for a few family and friends and could never have imagined that in a few short months it would have appealed over $4 million. 
 
 AK: So you got traction? 
 
 JB: Yes. The government don’t like me very much, but people with parking tickets do! 
 
 AK: And it’s a real business? 
 
 JB: Well, it’s currently free. 
 
 AK: No business model then… 
 
 JB: In Silicon Valley, there’s no such thing as business models! It’s just traction or not. People are loving and it’s great to be able to help them. 
 
 AK: As an innovator, someone who is reinventing the world, whether it’s by paying or not paying parking tickets, or disclosing or not disclosing HIV, what do you make of the 2016 election? 
 
 JB: It’s a complete disgrace. 
 
 JB: It’s been taken over by harmful rhetoric. We have so many problems in our society that I have noticed. People being imprisoned for years over just not paying fines, poverty, the healthcare system and the environment. And a few politicians, specifically one politician, is ignoring all of that and inciting racist hatred. 
 
 AK: But can innovation take place in parallell with the absurdity, ugliness and uselessness of the political process, or do you need it to help shape a better future? 
 
 JB: I think that the political process should try and stay as far away as possible from innovation. From my experience, governments tend to be big bureaucratic messes. The further they stay away from any sort of action, the better it is. 
 
 AK: So any kind of regulation you think is unhealthy from your point of view as an entrepreneur? 
 
 JB: Well I think you need regulation sometimes, but ultimately regulation is harmful to innovation. 
 
 AK: So, when you are sitting down as an app developer coming up with your brilliant new idea, the less the government is involved the better? 
 
 JB: Well, for example, in Texas where they banned Uber, how can anyone take that city seriously if they ban Uber, a symbol of innovation. So, absolutely, yes. 
 
 AK: And could the government become involved in your HIV screening? I mean particularly a conservative state that didn’t want to acknowledge still the AIDS virus. 
 
 JB: I think that it’s unfortunate and they are probably part of the problem. Part of the reason I needed to create this in the first place. So, I wouldn’t want them anywhere near it. 
 
 AK: Josh, you are an undergrad at Stanford. What is it at Stanford that is producing this assembly line of innovative young entrepreneurs like you? Is it cause and effect with smart entrepeneurs going to Stanford? Or is it once you go there, you suddenly become this remarkable young entrepreneur? 
 
 JB: Well I think at Stanford, it’s the people once you go. The Bay Area is really horrible, with expensive housing and everything like that. But one thing that the Bay Area has, which no other place in the world has, is amazing people. Just being around those people is inspiring and it inspires me to do more. 
 
 AK: Aren’t there kids at Stanford though who want to innovate in politics? People in your class who want to become President. Won’t that be the solution to the problems in DC. 
 
 JB: Absolutely! Even Elon Musk says that he would consider running for President some time in the future. So I would’t be against a President Musk. 
 
 AK: But of your generation, people who are still undergraduates, in their teens and early twenties, are they also thinking what you think. If we really want to change the system, we need to get into politics? 
 
 JB: I certainly have lots of friends who want to become prominent politicians. That’s one way to do it. Another way is to work outside of the system in Silicon Valley. I am too young to know which way is best, but I am trying to to work outside of the system at the moment. 
 
 AK: Josh, finally, for people who want to look into your apps, where do they find them? 
 
 JB: It’s currently DoNotPay.co.uk. 
 
 AK: DoNotPay.co.uk. And they find the HIV app there also? 
 
 JB: Yes. 
 
 AK: Josh, I want to commend you. I think you are doing a great job as an innovator. It is always nice to have real innovators on the show, rather than people who simply talk about innovation. Best of luck with all your work. 
 
 JB: Thanks so much! ||||| A Montgomery County community is setting up one of the nation's first Craigslist Transaction Safe Zones. 
 
 Conshohocken Police want to make sure people doing business on the popular website do it safely. 
 
 FOX 29's Dave Schratwieser shows us how it works. 
 
 The Conshohocken Police Station Parking Lot on Fayette Street couldn't be any safer. There are police cars, surveillance cameras, good lighting even an emergency phone to contact police. 
 
 So now the chief has designated the parking lot and the lobby at police headquarters as an online safe transaction zone. He says if you're conducting a one on one transaction where money is changing hands. This is the safest place to do it. 
 
 The new safe transaction zone comes as rip offs are increasing. Two weeks ago 34-year old Dion Jordan met a guy who wanted to purchase a dodge charger like this at a local Wawa. 
 
 During a second pre-arranged meeting at an airport hotel, they went for a test drive. That's when police say Jordan and an accomplice kidnapped the buyer and robbed him of $2,000 at gunpoint. 
 
 Jordan has now been charged in the car deal gone bad and the murder of 49 year old Dallas Long two days earlier. He faces charges in several bank robberies where he wore this expensive Hollywood style disguise. 
 
 Investigators are now trying to link him to five other murders. 
 
 The chief says never go to a transaction alone and always use cash or a bank check. Do the transaction during daytime hours when financial institutions are open in case a problem develops with the deal. 
 
 He believes other towns will follow suit with safety zones of their own.
– By the time he was 18, London native Joshua Browder had already racked up 30 parking tickets, the Guardian reports. That's even more impressive considering the legal driving age in the UK is 18. “I decided that instead of paying for them, I should try and fight," Browder says in a blog post. Less than two years later, the 19-year-old Stanford student's artificially intelligent chatbot—"the world's first robot lawyer"—has successfully appealed 160,000 parking tickets in London and New York. “I created it for a few family and friends and could never have imagined that in a few short months it would have appealed over $4 million [in parking tickets]." Browder's DoNotPay guides people through appealing tickets with simple questions, such as whether parking signs were clearly visible, at no charge. In 2015, New York City issued a record $1.9 billion in traffic fines. “I think the people getting parking tickets are the most vulnerable in society,” Browder tells Venture Beat. “These people aren’t looking to break the law. I think they’re being exploited as a revenue source by the local government.” With a success rate of 64% so far, DoNotPay is cutting into that revenue stream. “The government don’t like me very much, but people with parking tickets do," Browder says in the blog post. DoNotPay is scheduled to expand to Seattle next, but Browder isn't stopping there. He hopes to launch robot lawyers for refugees, people who are HIV positive, and more. (Busted on Facebook, a police chief issued himself a parking ticket.)