Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Lawyer cited 6 fake cases made up by ChatGPT; judge calls it “unprecedented”

arstechnica.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 212 posts

Re: Lawyer cited 6 fake cases made up by ChatGPT; judge calls it “unprecedented”

#71

Post by kevinmchugh »

mabbo wrote: post #28

I think the judge should not take into consideration anything about where the lawyer said they got the case information from. When you go to court and cite previous cases, you are responsible for ensuring they are real cases. If you can't do that, what exactly is your job as a lawyer?

If someone hacked westlaw and maliciously replaced opinions, I think it would not warrant censure of lawyers who cited westlaw. Maybe a bad day with the judge, and they'd have to amend the filings. This is malpractice in a way that relying on an accepted if technically fallible resource isn't

Re: Lawyer cited 6 fake cases made up by ChatGPT; judge calls it “unprecedented”

#72

Post by noman-land »

banana_giraffe wrote: post #45
glenngillen wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh boy, and this one! > The plaintiff's lawyer continued to insist that the cases were real. LoDuca filed an affidavit on April 25 in which he swore to the authenticity of the fake cases

> In Shaboon v. Egyptair, 2013 IL App (1st) 111279-U. I'm sure a case involving Egyptair is complicated, still .. I'd love to see the 111,279 page volume this citation claims to come from.

That's assuming it's citing the very last page of the document...

Re: Lawyer cited 6 fake cases made up by ChatGPT; judge calls it “unprecedented”

#74

Post by dylan604 »

mabbo wrote: post #28

I think the judge should not take into consideration anything about where the lawyer said they got the case information from. When you go to court and cite previous cases, you are responsible for ensuring they are real cases. If you can't do that, what exactly is your job as a lawyer?

>If you can't do that, what exactly is your job as a lawyer?

to convince some (judge/jury) that your client is the one to win the trial. ethics are meant to be the definer of how far to go in that cause with licensing boards being the ultimate decider if you've crossed the line and are allowed to continue in the legal practice.

Re: Lawyer cited 6 fake cases made up by ChatGPT; judge calls it “unprecedented”

#75

Post by gerdesj »

cj wrote: post #19

I asked ChatGPT to tell me a riddle. It was “What is always hungry, needs to be fed, and makes your hands red?” (Or something like that) I asked for a hint about 5 times and it kept giving more legitimate sounding hints. Finally I gave up and asked for the answer to the riddle, and it spit out a random fruit which made no sense as the answer to the riddle. I then repeated the riddle and asked ChatGPT what the answer…

> Or, learn how to say “I don’t know”

It doesn't know that it doesn't know! It is, very roughly speaking, a model that is designed to print out the most likely word given its current input and training, and then the next word etc.

Whereas you or I might be mistaken about some of our faculties, memories and skills, ChatGPT cannot possibly "know" what its limitations are. It was never taught what it was not taught (obvs) nor can it conceive of what it was not taught about. It might come back with some useful chat in this regard but it cannot reason.

Re: Lawyer cited 6 fake cases made up by ChatGPT; judge calls it “unprecedented”

#76

Post by pkilgore »

lynx23 wrote: post #24

Wait, this is handled as "ChatGPT made up these cases" and not as "Layers deliberately used ChatGPT to fabricate stuff"? Is anyone really believing a lawyer is that stupid? I know, adssume good intentions and all, but in this case, really?

In an adversarial system, you know that at the very least your opponent is checking your cases (you should also assume the Judge/clerks are too, but I never practiced enough in State courts to know how well that holds. In Federal District, it's absolutely true). Usually it's for incredibly small things, like unquoted/cited distinguishing remarks, later cases reversing the decision, and misquotes. So a whole case not existing is going to stand out like crazy.

Occam's Razor here is that this person was lazy, ignorant, careless, stupid, or any combination of those. To be intentionally fraudulent in this circumstance is the equivalent of trying to steal a gun from a cop. You're fucking with the one person in society who definitely has the training, motivation, and willingness to stop you.

Re: Lawyer cited 6 fake cases made up by ChatGPT; judge calls it “unprecedented”

#77

Post by shahar2k »

cj wrote: post #19

I asked ChatGPT to tell me a riddle. It was “What is always hungry, needs to be fed, and makes your hands red?” (Or something like that) I asked for a hint about 5 times and it kept giving more legitimate sounding hints. Finally I gave up and asked for the answer to the riddle, and it spit out a random fruit which made no sense as the answer to the riddle. I then repeated the riddle and asked ChatGPT what the answer…

the interesting part is I've interacted with some people going through manic phases and it's REALLY similar to chatgpt, the ability to string words and thoughts together without any large scale plans.

Re: Lawyer cited 6 fake cases made up by ChatGPT; judge calls it “unprecedented”

#78

Post by lisasays »

xahrepap wrote: post #52
cj wrote: post #19

I asked ChatGPT to tell me a riddle. It was “What is always hungry, needs to be fed, and makes your hands red?” (Or something like that) I asked for a hint about 5 times and it kept giving more legitimate sounding hints. Finally I gave up and asked for the answer to the riddle, and it spit out a random fruit which made no sense as the answer to the riddle. I then repeated the riddle and asked ChatGPT what the answer…

I've had a few moments with ChatGPT that are great anecdotes similar to your own: - Asked it to generate a MadLib for me to play that was no more than a paragraph long. It produced something that was several paragraphs wrong. I told it "no. That's X paragraphs. I asked for one that is only 1 paragraph long" and it would respond "I'm sorry for the misunderstanding. Let me try again" and then would make the same mistak…

I find those example quite encouraging, actually. In that it shows that the current SOA is still pretty far off from creating a planet-killing and/or species-ending AI.
Post reply on HN