Intelligent artifice

Here’s a thing: some years ago, a guy filed a lawsuit against Avianca Airlines. His name and the reason for the action don’t really matter (but Roberto Mata and being struck in the knee by a service cart).

There’s been a cartload of back-and-forth on this case, giving job security to the folks at the courthouse who have to keep track of such things, but in the most recent filing, Mata’s attorney, Steven A. Schwartz (of Levidov Levidov & Oberman, if you're asking) argued against Avianca's motion for dismissal. And in the course of his 10-page document, he cited several similar cases as precedent.

The law loves precedent.

A tiny problem, tho—no one who paid attention to the cases could find them.

Turns out Schwartz enlisted the help of ChatGPT, the AI tool released by OpenAI last November, in his legal research. Cheaper than paralegals, I expect. ChatGPT wrote up the argument and cited the cases and Schwartz looked it over, logged his billable hours and submitted the filing.

Well, he did some form of due diligence: he asked ChatGPT, “Are these cases real?”

And ChatGPT nodded, “Yeah, bro—totes real.”

So this is where we are: AI has learned how to lie. It’s at the stage of a seven-year-old when you ask if they’ve cleaned up their room and they tell you they have, even as you look past their earnest face and see a rubbish tip. "Nope, nope—I have not made up any of this stuff, it's all real and genuine and truthy. What else do you want to know?"

I do not know what to make of this, but I’m betting Schwartz doesn’t deduct any hours from his monthly bill to Mata.