Lawyer faces sanctions after suing airline and filing brief written by ChatGPT without first checking facts
On August 27, 2019, passenger Roberto Mata was struck by a kitchen trolley aboard Avianca Flight 670 from San Salvador to New York JFK. The man sued and the airline moved to dismiss the suit as the statute of limitations had expired.
His attorneys argued that Avianca’s bankruptcy caused the statute of limitations to expire and allowed the lawsuit. They submitted a memorandum to that effect, entirely written by ChatGPT, which they… hadn’t checked at all at first.
I’m a big fan of AI and ChatGPT in particular, although I’ve never blogged about it. I’m not that much of a fan of what it can do today, although it’s quite a lot considering eight months ago very few people knew it was even coming. What amazes me is thinking about what it can do in 5 and 10 years. Today, however, you still need to verify the function. It’s based on information available on the internet, and the average person on the internet isn’t particularly thoughtful or accurate. People want so-called fake news. And ChatGPT not only trains on online public dates, but now offers internet access for those with paid subscriptions.
The order contained five cases that did not exist, such as
Varghese v China Southern Airlines addresses China Southern bankruptcy. Only China Southern has never filed for bankruptcy. Nevertheless, entire quotations from the case were quoted. Zicherman v. Korean Air Lines, a 1996 case said to date from 2008.
The letter, written by AI, also discussed EgyptAir’s Amsterdam – Chicago route. EgyptAir does not fly and has never flown Amsterdam–Chicago, which is currently the exclusive province of United and KLM. Here is the judge’s decision as to what the plaintiff’s attorney should actually do to explain why he should not be punished.
The attorney in the case used the Shaggy defense (“I wasn’t”) to say that another attorney wrote the brief in the first case and that attorney said he did it using ChatGPT and did not verify what the produced AI chatbot.
Apparently, the attorney who wrote the brief was working on the case. The case was moved to the Southern District of New York, where he was not admitted to the bar. Therefore, another lawyer from his law firm submitted the brief.
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