NYC lawyer admits he used ChatGPT to file ‘bogus’ court documents

[Kamaji]

NYC lawyer admits he used ChatGPT to file ‘bogus’ court documents

By Jesse O’Neill
May 30, 2023

A lawyer at a respected Tribeca firm admitted citing several “bogus” lawsuits he claimed bolstered his case — because he used an artificial intelligence chatbot to help write the Manhattan federal court filing.

The shocking admission from Steven Schwartz, an attorney with firm Levidow, Levidow & Oberman, came after he asked ChatGPT to find cases relevant to his client’s lawsuit — only for the bot to fabricate them entirely, court documents show.

The snafu began after Schwartz’s legal partner Paul LoDuca filed a lawsuit against the Colombian airline Avianca on behalf of Robert Mata, who was allegedly injured when a metal serving cart struck his knee on a flight to New York City.

When the airline’s lawyers asked the court to toss the suit, Schwartz filed a brief that supposedly cited more than a half dozen relevant cases.

There was just one problem: the cases — such as Miller v. United Airlines, Petersen v. Iran Air and Varghese v. China Southern Airlines — were completely made up by ChatGPT.

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Source:  https://nypost.com/2023/05/30/steven-schwartz-admits-he-used-chatgpt-to-file-bogus-court-doc/

[DB]

I wonder if this journalist knows what "snafu" means?

[The_Reader_David]

Which suggests a guard-rail for text-based AI:  all assertions of fact made by an AI program must be accompanied by what used to be called "textual apparatus":  footnotes (or endnotes) and a bibliography of sources.

[Smokin Joe]

Which suggests a guard-rail for text-based AI:  all assertions of fact made by an AI program must be accompanied by what used to be called "textual apparatus":  footnotes (or endnotes) and a bibliography of sources.

The AI will just make them up, too....

[The_Reader_David]

The AI will just make them up, too....

No, that's the point.  The programming and training of the AI has to be designed so that only actual sources can be cited.

[Kamaji]

No, that's the point.  The programming and training of the AI has to be designed so that only actual sources can be cited.

Connect an AI with Wests and Shepards, and one just might put a bunch of first year associates to shame.

[DefiantMassRINO]

Back in the day, our legal department used Westlaw CD's to do legal digging before the Interwebs caught on.  That's back when CD drives used CD caddies.