Two lawyers who used fake cases generated by ChatGPT were jointly fined $5,000 and ordered to contact the judges mentioned in the fake cases to inform them of the situation.
A Manhattan judge has fined two attorneys $5,000 who handed him a legal brief filled with made-up cases and quotes, all generated by ChatGPT artificial intelligence. While conversational AI often proves to be accurate and efficient, he sometimes happens to invent things from scratch.
The attorneys, Steven A. Schwartz and Peter LoDuca of the firm Levidow, Levidow & Oberman, initially defended their research, even after opposing counsel pointed out that it was bogus, but eventually s apologize to the court.
ChatGPT sometimes generates false information
Schwartz and LoDuca represented Roberto Mata, who claimed he suffered a knee injury after being hit by a metal service cart on an Avianca flight from El Salvador to New York’s Kennedy International Airport in 2019. When the Colombian airline a asked a Manhattan judge to dismiss the case on the grounds that the statute of limitations had passed, Schwartz presented a 10-page legal brief containing half a dozen past court decisions, except that a good part of these did not exist.
In ordering the lawyers and the law firm to pay the fine, the judge said they had ” abandoned their responsibilities when they submitted non-existent court opinions with fake quotes created by the artificial intelligence tool ChatGPT, then continued to support the fake reports after court orders questioned their existence “.
This incident therefore confirms a study that claimed that ChatGPT was a haven for fake news, including the latest version based on GPT-4. Although AI is beginning to replace some workers, including HR, who are increasingly using it to write dismissal letters, it seems that lawyers are not yet threatened.
” Technological advancements are commonplace and there is nothing inherently wrong with using a reliable artificial intelligence tool for help. “, said judge Castel. ” But existing rules place lawyers in a gatekeeper role to ensure the accuracy of their statements “.
