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A New York-based lawyer has come under fire for using ChatGPT for legal research as part of a lawsuit against a Colombian airline.
Steven Schwartz, an attorney for the New York law firm Levidow, Levidow & Oberman, was hired by Robert Mata to sue Avianca Airlines for damages.
According to a May 28 report by CNN Business, Mata claims he was injured by a serving cart while flying with the airline in 2019.
However, after the judge noticed inconsistencies and factual errors in the case documentation, Schwartz has now admitted to using ChatGPT for his legal research, according to a May 24 sworn affidavit.
He claims that this was his first time using ChatGPT for legal research and “was unaware of the possibility that its content could be false.”
In a court statement dated April 5, the judge who heard the case stated:
“Six of the cases presented appear to be fictitious judgments with fictitious citations and fictitious internal citations.”
The judge also argued that some of the cases referred to in the submissions did not actually exist, and there was a case where a case number in one claim document was confused with another legal claim.
Schwartz said he also regrets trusting the artificial chatbot without doing his own due diligence. The affidavit noted:
“Very regrets using generative artificial intelligence to complement the legal research done here and will never do so in the future without absolute verification of its authenticity.”
Related: AI Meets Blockchain: Revolutionizing Smart Contracts and Cryptocurrency
Recently, there has been ongoing debate about the extent to which ChatGPT can be integrated into the workforce.
However, reports show that the level of intelligence of ChatGPT is growing rapidly.
However, the developers are skeptical about whether it can really completely replace people.
Syed Gazanfer, a blockchain developer, said that while he maintains ChatGPT, he doubts he has the communication skills to fully replace humans.
“In order for him to replace you, you must report requirements that cannot be met in your native English. That’s why we invented programming languages,” he said.