Judge Learns Lawyers on Both Sides of Case Used AI, Cancels Trial, Kicks Everyone Off the Case

[usonian]

https://www.404media.co/judge-learns-lawyers-on-both-sides-of-case-used-ai-cancels-trial-kicks-everyone-off-the-case/

Problem?
https://removepaywalls.com/https://www.404media.co/judge-learns-lawyers-on-both-sides-of-case-used-ai-cancels-trial-kicks-everyone-off-the-case/

The lawyers on both sides of a federal court case in Mississippi were caught using artificial intelligence, a situation where, effectively, generative AI tools were used to argue against each other. The judge wrote in a blistering sanctions order, that the lawyers wasted the court’s time, and that “in an era of rampant unverified AI usage within the legal field, this case presents a prime example of the risk associated with serving as a rubber-stamp.”

“This case presents the Court with an unusual scenario—attorneys for both litigants engaged in similar sanctionable conduct,” Sharion Aycock, senior United States District Judge for the Northern District of Mississippi wrote in a sanctions order. “This court is yet again ‘burdened with addressing AI hallucinations court filings.’”

The case in question involved a contractual dispute between lawyer Tom Withers and the city of Aberdeen, Mississippi, over apparently unpaid legal fees (Withers was not representing himself and was not sanctioned by the court). The case was first noticed by Rob Freund, a lawyer who frequently posts about cases involving AI hallucinations. Freund called it a “comedy of AI errors,” and suggested “there were two clients who basically were paying for ChatGPT (or whatever LLM) to argue against itself.”

404 Media has repeatedly covered the phenomenon of lawyers using AI to prepare their filings, and the specifics in this court case follow a similar pattern to what we’ve seen before: Lawyers for both sides cited nonexistent, hallucinated cases while making their arguments. The difference is that every lawyer involved in the case is implicated, leading Aycock to pause the proceedings, cancel the trial, and disqualify all four lawyers involved. Two of the lawyers were barred from appearing before the court for two years; all lawyers received a fine of between $1,000 and $3,500, depending on Aycock’s assessment of their culpability for not verifying the outputs of the AI they used.

[Torchlight]

1. I'd think they'd at least have a paralegal proof it

and check the cites against case law. That's beyond sloppy, that's just lazy.

[hlthe2b]

8. Yes.. But if they are so cavalier as to use AI to prepare even the initial filing, perhaps their

paralegals follow suit... Laziness and incompetence tends to be infectious, I've noticed.

[no_hypocrisy]

2. Counsel, either the citation is in The Blue Book, or it isn't.

Case dismissed.

[Hassin Bin Sober]

3. Ooffff

[PatSeg]

4. Whoa, that's some special

kind of stupid. What law school did these clowns attend?

[UpInArms]

6. they received their juris doctorates

in a cornflakes box

[PatSeg]

9. And I suppose that

qualifications are rather different in Mississippi.

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

15. I hope the AI didn't say "Yutes"

No, that would be Alabama, not Mississippi.

[PatSeg]

16. Really?

I hadn't heard that one before.

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

18. From the movie "My Cousin Vinny"

A classic comedy.

[UpInArms]

5. This makes the best case against the use of AI in most settings

AI is not "intelligent"

AI is a freaking lying piece of crappy software

AI is a meme making toy for stupid reasons

Someone should stick a fork in that shit, because IMHO, it is done

[PatSeg]

11. Sadly, I think it will be a while

before "it is done". I'm sure there will be much more damage to come before it gets restricted and regulated. Unfortunately, the possibilities for AI are endless and most will come with negative consequences.

[Sympthsical]

7. When the legal system goes full Reddit

And bots argue with one another all day.

[dickthegrouch]

10. About time!

Artificial intelligence = Abundant Iniquity!

I love the two year prohibition against appearing before that court again.

Law schools seem to have failed mightily in their ethics instruction over the last 50 years or so, and IMHO should be rescinding the degrees they conferred from anyone who gets sanctioned like this.

[Quanto Magnus]

12. There should be HUGE fines

for lawyers who use AI....

$3500 is not nearly enough to discourage this behavior.

F that mess....

[Ray Bruns]

13. They would have been better off with these guys

[highplainsdem]

14. Sigh. It was already obvious a few years ago that use of generative AI was dumbing users down and

encouraging cheating. (And OpenAI's Sam Altman was already saying a few years ago that using AI shouldn't be considered cheating.)

No one should be using generative AI tools for any reason. They're always unethical to use, and always flawed tech that can hallucinate at any time. The AI resultsare always just imitation knowledge and accomplishment. And that's true whether the genAI tools are generating text, images, video, music or code.

Every single use of them is cheating or fraud, in a way. Every single use of them can result in errors.

Every single use of them is enabled by the initial theft of the world's intellectual property to train the AI, and people are setting concern about ethics aside when they use gen AI.

But people are still tempted to use genAI tools because they think offering AI results as their own work makes them seem smarter or more talented than they are. They're still tempted to use AI because it saves time - at least if they don't check the results. They often don't, and the more they rely on AI, the less likely they are to check results.

As long as society treats using this flawed, unethical tech as a good thing, we're going to see this sort of cheating and stupidity.

GenAI is fundamentally unethical and flawed and hurts both users and those who are expected to treat AI use and AI results as valuable.

[Figarosmom]

17. Good, i hope

This becomes a thing among judges.

[WestMichRad]

19. Vendor(s) of whichever AI apps were used by the lawyers:

“But… but… We built (a) data center(s) just for lawyers to use!”

[Ford_Prefect]

20. So much for a labor saving app replacing significant human action, eh?

[LudwigPastorius]

21. Don't trust your soul to no backwoods, southern A.I.

That's that the night the lights went out in Mississippi.