ChatGPT attorneys are instructed to consider seeking forgiveness
A judge in Manhattan on Thursday fined two lawyers $5,000 who drafted a legal letter full of fabricated cases and quotes, all generated by the ChatGPT artificial intelligence program, and then submitted them to court.
The judge, P. Kevin Castel of the Federal District Court, also harshly criticized the lawyers’ actions and ordered them to send a copy of his opinion to each of the real judges whose name appeared on ChatGPT’s bogus opinions.
Judge Castel wrote in the 34-page opinion that he would not ask the attorneys, Steven A. Schwartz and Peter LoDuca, whom he called the respondents, to apologize to the judges whose names appeared on the false opinions “because a forced apology is not a sincere apology.”
“Any decision to apologize is left to the respondents,” the judge added.
The discovery of ChatGPT’s use in drafting the brief in an otherwise low-profile court case in Manhattan reverberated throughout the legal profession. The revelation also impressed the tech community, which has sparked a debate about the dangers of over-reliance on artificial intelligence — even as a potential existential threat to humanity.
“Much harm results from filing false opinions,” the judge wrote. “The opposing party is wasting time and money exposing the deception. Court time is being taken from other important efforts.”
Judge Castel added that the lawyers’ action “fuels cynicism about the legal profession and the American justice system. And a prospective litigant may be tempted to defy a court ruling by falsely claiming that there is doubt about its authenticity.”
The ruling on Thursday followed a June 8 hearing, where Judge Castel Mr. Schwartz and Mr. LoDuca on how they came to file the injunction in the lawsuit in which their client, Roberto Mata, seeks to hold the airline Avianca responsible for an injury he says he suffered when a metal serving trolley hit his knee during a flight in August 2019 from El Salvador to New York.
After Avianca asked that the lawsuit be dismissed because the statute of limitations had expired, Mr. Schwartz published a 10-page letter citing more than half a dozen court decisions with names such as Martinez v. Delta Air Lines, Varghese v. China Southern Airlines, and Zicherman v. Korean Air Lines to argue that the lawsuit should continue .
Because Mr. Schwartz was not allowed to practice in Manhattan federal court, his partner, Mr. LoDuca, the registered attorney and signed the assignment, which was filed in March. 1.
Two weeks later, Avianca’s lawyers, Bart Banino and Marissa Lefland, replied that they “could not find most of the case law” cited in the letter, and that the few cases they could find “do not match the statements what they are intended for”. quoted.”
At the June 8 hearing, Mr. Schwartz, who has been a lawyer for three decades, told the judge that he used ChatGPT because his firm, Levidow, Levidow & Oberman, did not have a database with access to federal cases and he could not find what he needed on Google.
“I heard about this new site,” said Mr. Schwartz, “which I mistakenly assumed was some sort of super search engine.”
“I never imagined that ChatGPT would produce made-up stuff,” he said.