comments here are like "what dumb lawyers". Sure OK. But what can we say here about "GPT-4 passed the bar exam!" and how useful is that data, given that this does not imply GPT-4 has the actual skills of a human lawyer.
Lawyers blame ChatGPT for tricking them into citing bogus case law
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Re: Lawyers blame ChatGPT for tricking them into citing bogus case law
#42When you start giving ChatGPT a plugin to query LexisNexis and do proper citiations (as Bing Chat does), then things get interesting. Unfortunately Lexis's API fees are currently quite steep, so only very wealthy law firms will be able to afford to use such a service in the short term.
You'll still run into the same problem these guys did (i.e. not checking the citations). It's easy enough to just search to see if a thing it tells you is real.
...Until search is subsumed by chatbots and all you can access is a commercial statistical model's rendering of the truth, digested from ever more abstract renderings of the primary sources, which probably exist somewhere but are impractical to find under the mountain of re-written LLM spam.
Re: Lawyers blame ChatGPT for tricking them into citing bogus case law
#43The cynic in me wonders if this isn’t part of a plan to create a legal precedent banning AI from handling legal disputes. Think about it: the legal profession is possibly one of the most threatened by the development of AI models. What better way to secure the professional future of the long tail of lawyers and paralegals?
Occam's razor would suggest it's just an incompetent lawyer, rather than an evil genius lawyer playing 3d chess while perfectly appearing to be an incompetent lawyer
Nit : you probably mean Hanlon's razor
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon%27s_razor
Re: Lawyers blame ChatGPT for tricking them into citing bogus case law
#44The lawyer said: “I did not comprehend that ChatGPT could fabricate cases." I wonder how many other people using ChatGPT do not comprehend that ChatGPT can be a confident bullshitter... I'm surprised that this one case is getting so much attention because there must be so many instances of people using false information they got from ChatGPT.
I think the case is getting the attention because it's not just some one spouting off online, it's a lawyer bumping into the legal system with false information that would otherwise be a massive legal no-no and they are trying to scape-goat it onto the new shiny software.
But they might have seen the shiny new software touted by "those smart AI guys as being revolutionary and passing the Bar!" and they don't hang out on HN all day so to them that's like someone saying "this bridge is sturdy!" and they walk over it without realizing they should really go over the nuts and bolts of it like a civil engineer to really be sure
Re: Lawyers blame ChatGPT for tricking them into citing bogus case law
#45Earlier quoted context omitted.
The particular issue here is you believe that this lawyer just isn't dumber than a bag of hammers. There is no conspiracy needed. People are dumb. This is why when you see warning labels all over some item, "Big Label" didn't do that, no some dumbass got their tallywacker ripped off by their Easy Bake Oven. Now everyone has to deal with 10 stickers on the item and a dictionary sized book of what you can and can't do…
> People are dumb. People are dumb. Lawyers shouldn't be. If distribution of stupidity among certain professions is similar to that of people in general, something has gone very bad somewhere in the education and certification pipeline.
I've got some really, really, really bad news. Lawyers are not really any smarter than any other group of people out there. Passing a test about law doesn't mean much at all...
I mean, I did computer support for many lawyers and prosecutors and many were clever intelligent people. Others had to be explained to in simple instructions they shouldn't pour the glue on their keyboard before eating it. How they became a lawyer is beyond my understanding, and yet here we are.
Re: Lawyers blame ChatGPT for tricking them into citing bogus case law
#46Earlier quoted context omitted.
The particular issue here is you believe that this lawyer just isn't dumber than a bag of hammers. There is no conspiracy needed. People are dumb. This is why when you see warning labels all over some item, "Big Label" didn't do that, no some dumbass got their tallywacker ripped off by their Easy Bake Oven. Now everyone has to deal with 10 stickers on the item and a dictionary sized book of what you can and can't do…
> People are dumb. People are dumb. Lawyers shouldn't be. If distribution of stupidity among certain professions is similar to that of people in general, something has gone very bad somewhere in the education and certification pipeline.
You're just figuring this out? What do you mean "if"?
Re: Lawyers blame ChatGPT for tricking them into citing bogus case law
#47The lawyer said: “I did not comprehend that ChatGPT could fabricate cases." I wonder how many other people using ChatGPT do not comprehend that ChatGPT can be a confident bullshitter... I'm surprised that this one case is getting so much attention because there must be so many instances of people using false information they got from ChatGPT.
It is literally just a goddamn language model. it is very good at making plausibly human-like sentences. It is not a general intelligence, it is not your friend, it is not a research assistant. It is not designed to deliver content which is correct, it is designed to deliver content which is similar to human language.
It might get things correct most of the time! But that is purely incidental.
Re: Lawyers blame ChatGPT for tricking them into citing bogus case law
#48The cynic in me wonders if this isn’t part of a plan to create a legal precedent banning AI from handling legal disputes. Think about it: the legal profession is possibly one of the most threatened by the development of AI models. What better way to secure the professional future of the long tail of lawyers and paralegals?
either you consider that lawyers have an added value from IA and you consider they can take an advice from an IA but they are able to see through its bullshit, or you consider they have little added value when provided IA input, and then once AI is good enough/better as a whole (considering cost and availability) they are of no use.
Re: Lawyers blame ChatGPT for tricking them into citing bogus case law
#49Why don't they sue it?
Re: Lawyers blame ChatGPT for tricking them into citing bogus case law
#50People confuse creating a response that makes sense in a language (which LLM’s are designed to do) with coveying facts and truths in a language (which LLM’s are not designed to do).
LLM’s are revolutionary because they provide a more fluent interface to data… but that doesn’t not mean that the data is correct. Especially not in the early phases.
For most people any sufficiently advance technology is indistinguishable from magic. The average joes think that this is magic.