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Hallucinating artificial intelligence can tank a court case by creating fake case citations that leave the lawyers open to sanctions or the proceeding itself vulnerable to being overturned, a former litigator said.
Last month, a judge handed down a $5,000 penalty on a law firm representing Colombian airline Avianca Inc., which used ChatGPT to write its legal brief, but the AI included fabricated judicial decisions.
A similar case happened in South Africa, and the judge and magistrate overseeing the cases ripped the law firms in their decisions.
“There is potential harm to the reputation of judges and courts whose names are falsely invoked as authors of the bogus opinions and to the reputation of a party attributed with fictional conduct,” the judge presiding over the Avianca case wrote. “It promotes cynicism about the legal profession and the American judicial system.”
“WHAT IS AI?”
Artificial Intelligence smartphone app ChatGPT surrounded by other AI apps in Vaasa, on June 6, 2023. (Olivier Morin/AFP via Getty Images)
Jacqueline Schafer, CEO and founder of Clearbrief, an AI-powered platform that essentially fact-checks legal briefs, said this issue will continue to happen because of the time pressure that lawyers face.
“There’s a big temptation to use things that can just write it for you,” Schafer told Fox News Digital during a Zoom interview.
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“We’re likely to see these stories continue to pop up. That’s why it’s critical for law firms to thoroughly review all of their pleadings before filing, even if they think they have banned ChatGPT in their firm.”
Schafer, who began her career as a litigator in New York before becoming an assistant attorney general for the states of Alaska and Washington, created Clearbrief in 2020 to catch mistakes or bogus cases in AI-written briefs.
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“The challenge we have with generative AI like ChatGPT that creates…
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