ChatGPT Lawyers Are Ordered to Consider Seeking Forgiveness
A Manhattan judge on Thursday imposed a $5,000 fine on two lawyers who gave him a legal brief full of made-up cases and citations, all generated by the artificial intelligence program ChatGPT. The judge, P. Kevin Castel of Federal District Court, criticized the lawyers harshly and ordered them to send a copy of his opinion to each of the real-life judges whose names appeared in the fictitious filing. But Judge Castel wrote that he would not require the lawyers, Steven A. Schwartz and Peter LoDuca, whom he referred to as respondents, to apologize to those judges, “because a compelled apology is not a sincere apology.” “Any decision to apologize is left to respondents,” the judge added. The discovery that ChatGPT had helped create the brief in an otherwise unremarkable lawsuit reverberated throughout the legal profession. The revelation also riveted the tech community, which has been debating the dangers of overreliance on artificial intelligence — even as a existential threat to humanity. In the case involving Schwartz and LoDuca, Judge Castel made it clear they had violated a basic precept of the American legal system. “Many harms flow from the submission of fake opinions,” the judge wrote. “The opposing party wastes time and money in exposing the deception. The court’s time is taken from other important endeavors.” The lawyers’ action, he added, “promotes cynicism about the legal profession and the American judicial system. And a future litigant may be tempted to defy a judicial ruling by disingenuously claiming doubt about its authenticity.” Thursday’s ruling followed a June 8 hearing at which Judge Castel grilled Schwartz and LoDuca about how they came to file the brief. In the suit, their client, Roberto Mata, sought to hold the airline Avianca responsible for an injury he says he sustained when a metal serving cart hit his knee during an August 2019 flight from El Salvador to New York. After Avianca asked to dismiss the suit because the statute of limitations had expired, Schwartz prepared a 10-page brief citing more than a half-dozen court decisions with names like Martinez v. Delta Air Lines, Varghese v. China Southern Airlines and Zicherman v. Korean Air Lines, to argue that the litigation should be allowed to proceed.<br/>
https://portal.staralliance.com/cms/news/hot-topics/2023-06-23/star/chatgpt-lawyers-are-ordered-to-consider-seeking-forgiveness
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ChatGPT Lawyers Are Ordered to Consider Seeking Forgiveness
A Manhattan judge on Thursday imposed a $5,000 fine on two lawyers who gave him a legal brief full of made-up cases and citations, all generated by the artificial intelligence program ChatGPT. The judge, P. Kevin Castel of Federal District Court, criticized the lawyers harshly and ordered them to send a copy of his opinion to each of the real-life judges whose names appeared in the fictitious filing. But Judge Castel wrote that he would not require the lawyers, Steven A. Schwartz and Peter LoDuca, whom he referred to as respondents, to apologize to those judges, “because a compelled apology is not a sincere apology.” “Any decision to apologize is left to respondents,” the judge added. The discovery that ChatGPT had helped create the brief in an otherwise unremarkable lawsuit reverberated throughout the legal profession. The revelation also riveted the tech community, which has been debating the dangers of overreliance on artificial intelligence — even as a existential threat to humanity. In the case involving Schwartz and LoDuca, Judge Castel made it clear they had violated a basic precept of the American legal system. “Many harms flow from the submission of fake opinions,” the judge wrote. “The opposing party wastes time and money in exposing the deception. The court’s time is taken from other important endeavors.” The lawyers’ action, he added, “promotes cynicism about the legal profession and the American judicial system. And a future litigant may be tempted to defy a judicial ruling by disingenuously claiming doubt about its authenticity.” Thursday’s ruling followed a June 8 hearing at which Judge Castel grilled Schwartz and LoDuca about how they came to file the brief. In the suit, their client, Roberto Mata, sought to hold the airline Avianca responsible for an injury he says he sustained when a metal serving cart hit his knee during an August 2019 flight from El Salvador to New York. After Avianca asked to dismiss the suit because the statute of limitations had expired, Schwartz prepared a 10-page brief citing more than a half-dozen court decisions with names like Martinez v. Delta Air Lines, Varghese v. China Southern Airlines and Zicherman v. Korean Air Lines, to argue that the litigation should be allowed to proceed.<br/>
