Lawyers career at stake as AI Chat bot made up cases for a brief

While corporate boardrooms are discussing policies to ensure the smooth adoption of artificial intelligence, there are frequent talks of AI taking over human jobs. A recent story in The New York Times however raises serious doubts about the potential of AI. Companies will also need to keep such scenarios in mind while adopting AI-enabled applications and processes. Attorney Steven Schwartz of the law firm Levidow, Levidow, and Oberman took the assistance of an open AI Chatbot for writing a brief.

Schwartz’s firm sued the Colombian airline Avianca on behalf of Roberto Mata, who alleges he was injured on a journey to John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York City. Mata’s lawyers filed a 10-page brief outlining why the action should proceed when the airline recently sought a federal judge to dismiss the complaint. The document cited more than half a dozen court decisions, including “Varghese v. China Southern Airlines,” “Martinez v. Delta Airlines” and “Miller v. United Airlines.” Unfortunately, it turned out that the Chatbot had fabricated these cases. The lawyer might face sanctions during the next hearing scheduled for the first week of June.