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By now you’ve probably heard that ChatGPT has a penchant for making up lies and stating them as fact, or what experts refer to as an AI “hallucination.” That didn’t stop two lawyers in New York City from having ChatGPT spit out some legal documents. Unsurprisingly, the AI fabricated some quotes and citations out of thin air, but the lawyers submitted the documents anyway, apparently without doing any diligence to check the facts.
The shenanigans came to light when the court noticed six of the legal cases used as citations were imaginary. The judge wrote that lawyers Peter LoDuca and Steven A. Schwartz then made matters worse for themselves by lying to the court. When the court questioned their made-up case law, the judge said Schwartz offered “shifting and contradictory explanations” and LoDuca pretended to be on vacation in a bid for more time.
Federal Judge P. Kevin Castel wrote that the lawyers and their firm, Levidow, Levidow & Oberman, P.C., acted in bad faith and lied to the court to cover up their mistakes. The respondents “abandoned their responsibilities when they submitted non-existent judicial opinions with fake quotes and citations created by the artificial intelligence tool ChatGPT, then continued to stand by the fake opinions after judicial orders called their existence into question,” Judge Castel wrote in the decision.