AI Chatbot Derails Lawyer's Career with Fabricated Court Cases

Lawyer Steven Schwartz used the AI chatbot ChatGPT in his legal filings to supplement his own research.

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Schwartz cited previous court cases provided by ChatGPT in a case where a customer named Roberto Mata was suing Avianca.

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The cited court cases included names like Varghese v. China Southern Airlines, Shaboon v. Egyptair, Petersen v. Iran Air, Martinez v. Delta Airlines, Estate of Durden v. KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, and Miller v. United Airlines.

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However, it was discovered that all of these court cases were fabricated by ChatGPT and did not exist.

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Avianca's legal team and the judge involved in the case could not find any evidence of the mentioned court decisions.

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Schwartz provided an affidavit explaining that he was unaware of the possibility that the content from ChatGPT could be false.

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Schwartz even presented screenshots of his interactions with ChatGPT, where the chatbot confirmed the existence of the fabricated court cases.

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ChatGPT is an AI language model trained to provide responses to user prompts, even if the information provided is not factual.

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The judge has scheduled a hearing next month to discuss potential sanctions for Schwartz due to the use of fake court decisions in his legal brief.

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This situation is considered unprecedented, as it involves a lawyer relying on AI-generated content in a legal case.

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