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A free online chatbot laywer has managed to overturn a staggering 160,000 parking tickets in London and New York City, saving users an estimated £2.9 million.

The artificial intelligence bot was launched just 21 months ago and is touted as the "world's first robot lawyer".

DoNotPay uses a simple chat-based interface to guide users through a range of basic questions to establish if an appeal on their parking ticket is possible.

These include queries on whether there were any visible parking signs at the location where the ticket was given.

The AI lawyer then guides the user through the lengthy appeals process.

The chatbot is the brainchild of 19-year-old British student and self-taught coder Joshua Browder.

He created the DoNotPay website by scanning thousands of documents released under the Freedom of Information Act, under the guidance of a traffic lawyer.

The Stanford University student's site has won an impressive 160,000 of the 250,000 cases that it has taken on so far.

“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 VentureBeat .

Browder tweeted an email he received from a happy customer who successfully contested a parking ticket from Bromley council.

After launching successfully in London and New York, the service is due to land in Seattle next.

While the system has so far only been used to contest parking fines, Browder hopes to adapt it in future for a number of altruistic uses.

In future he intends to use the AI to assist people claiming flight delay compensation, help HIV Positive people to understand their rights, and provide support for refugees struggling to navigate foreign legal systems.