When a New Yorker received a notice from her landlord about a rent increase after two years of neglecting to fix the washer/dryer unit in her building, she saved money on a lawyer and used ChatGPT instead.
Svetlana, who didn’t wish to reveal her last name, used the chatbot to write an email in “legalese” to her landlord, which saw them agree to fix her washer and dryer.
The exchange with her landlord started after she received a rent increase notice of 0.4%, from $1,389 to $1,395, just days after she had filed for a decrease in rent because her washer and dryer had been out of order for more than two years.
The 28-year-old feared she wouldn’t be able to get her point across herself, so she asked the AI chatbot to act like a housing lawyer and draft an email opposing the rent raise.
Svetlana’s attempt was successful, and her landlord fixed both machines that month.
“The rent increase alone was not my gripe!” Svetlana said. “It was the audacity to increase the rent, seemingly in retaliation after I filed a complaint and request for a rent decrease on the basis of decreased building-wide services.”
In two and half years, Svetlana had lodged several complaints with her landlord to get the machines fixed, but she never received a response.
“I prompted Chat GPT to add more legalese,” she said. “It’s like a super-smart, objective, real-time sounding board.”
ChatGPT even quoted specific sections of the New York rent stabilization code and posited that the rent increase was retaliatory.
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Svetlana, an executive assistant, already uses the AI chatbot for work, but the experience has her considering using it to resolve other legal conflicts.
“I never received an official response from my landlord, but there was a sign posted in my building announcing that the laundry rooms were back in service.”
“It’s definitely reinforced my faith in the, what feels to be, limitless future of AI. We’re living in super fun times and it’s clear that we’re only just scratching the surface of what’s possible.”
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There are now no shortage of precautionary voices and stories of these AI services, whether for photo and image manipulation, or instances like this one, but it’s nice to see it being used to tackle a situation almost all of us can relate to.
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