Lawyers who used artificial intelligence to file a legal brief — that cited fake case law — have been sanctioned by a federal judge.
Judge P. Kevin Castel ordered New York lawyers Steven Schwartz and Peter LoDuca of Levidow, Levidow & Oberman, P.C., Thursday to each pay a $5,000 fine. He also ordered them and their firm to notify each judge falsely identified as the author of the phony rulings about the sanction.
The judge said the lawyers “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.”
“Many harms flow from the submission of fake opinions,” Judge Castel wrote.
Mr. Schwartz and Mr. LoDuca were representing an individual who accused Avianca Airlines of negligence after he was injured during a flight.
Mr. Schwartz consulted ChatGPT for legal research as he drafted documents for the case.
According to court papers, Mr. Schwartz was accused of citing roughly half a dozen fake cases to support his legal arguments. Opposing counsel caught the fabrications and challenged the citations.
Mr. Schwartz admitted in a court filing that he did not confirm the sources provided by the artificial intelligence bot.
The lawyers did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
This is not the first time ChatGPT has come under scrutiny for providing fake information.
Earlier this year, Brian Hood, a mayor in an area northwest of Melbourne, Australia, made news when he threatened to sue OpenAI’s ChatGPT, which falsely reported he’s guilty of a foreign bribery scandal. The false accusations allegedly occurred in the early 2000s with the Reserve Bank of Australia.
And earlier this month, a radio host sued the bot for alleging he was part of a Second Amendment lawsuit, which he was not.
A spokesperson from Open AI, which owns ChatGPT, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
• Alex Swoyer can be reached at aswoyer@washingtontimes.com.
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