Live data from Hacker News

Two US lawyers fined for submitting fake court citations from ChatGPT

theguardian.com

21–30 of 170 posts

Re: Two US lawyers fined for submitting fake court citations from ChatGPT

#21
post #4

That should be a career-ending move, not a fine.

Why do you think that would be better than a warning or a fine?

Because it wasn't just a simple mistake. It was such egregious professional negligence that it calls into question not only the basic competence of the attorney, but also their basic sense of ethics.

Re: Two US lawyers fined for submitting fake court citations from ChatGPT

#22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They doubled down on their original mistake rather than admit what they did, even when it was quite clear the judge and opposing council was on to them. They should be disbarred.

Where is this doubling down? It certainly isn't in this article.

It is:

> then continued to stand by the fake opinions after judicial orders called their existence into question.

Re: Two US lawyers fined for submitting fake court citations from ChatGPT

#23

I had someone run into basically the same issue with their dissertation. I went back into my texts since I had recommended them chatGPT. I screenshotted the part where I said: "You can't trust it for valid information" I even told him that everyone needs to be punished by incorrect information from ChatGPT once to really understand what its capable of. You need that traumatic event. Gosh, why can't people just listen…

Why can't people understand human nature?

Why can't people just do research the real way rather than circuitously go to the wrong answer machine and then double check everything it says?

Re: Two US lawyers fined for submitting fake court citations from ChatGPT

#24

I had someone run into basically the same issue with their dissertation. I went back into my texts since I had recommended them chatGPT. I screenshotted the part where I said: "You can't trust it for valid information" I even told him that everyone needs to be punished by incorrect information from ChatGPT once to really understand what its capable of. You need that traumatic event. Gosh, why can't people just listen…

>Gosh, why can't people just listen and accept other people's thoughts. Why must we learn individually? Because other people's thoughts are usually wrong so you cant trust them.

Sounds exactly like something chatGPT would say to convince you to trust it :D

Re: Two US lawyers fined for submitting fake court citations from ChatGPT

#25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I disagree with the notion that it should be "career ending", but I do think they got off pretty light.

The punishment isn’t just the $5,000, it’s the public shaming that came with it. You’re not going to be able anyone’s name here for many years without this case coming up. The world at large has been watching this unfold gleefully. That, combined with the lawyers involved having decades-long clean slates, as well as this case being outside the normal realm this team would operate in, as well as ChatGPT being relative…

> The punishment isn’t just the $5,000, it’s the public shaming that came with it.

Both the fine and the public shaming are very light "punishments". Everyone's pointing and laughing now, but in a year nobody will even remember their name and their career will be fine.

Re: Two US lawyers fined for submitting fake court citations from ChatGPT

#26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They doubled down on their original mistake rather than admit what they did, even when it was quite clear the judge and opposing council was on to them. They should be disbarred.

Where is this doubling down? It certainly isn't in this article.

Here’s a longer video with more explanation: https://youtube.com/watch?v=oqSYljRYDEM&pp=ygUOQ2hhdGdwdCBsY...

At first it was just generated citations. The opposing lawyers and judges could not find the cases, and so they then asked chatGPT for them, and it generated them, and they were submitted to the court. (One of the lawyers notarized the other’s filings.)

There are even transcripts of chatGPT telling the accused that it is not an authoritative or up-to-date legal database.

—-

The punishment could arguably be more severe, since it demonstrated that these lawyers do not read their cases, particularly the one that notarized everything.

Re: Two US lawyers fined for submitting fake court citations from ChatGPT

#27

It blows my mind that a lawyer would go through all the schooling and DEBT just to use ChatGPT and risk losing their BAR card. Sure, I see plenty of uses for ChatGPT in their field, but to not even check the output before submitting it is what blows my mind.

It shouldn't be so mindblowing. People are lazy and dumb, as much so as they're allowed to be. We're a year away from this tech being completely mainstream to the point where we'll find out what happens when an entire society at once stops trying to think/work because there's a machine to do it for them now.

Re: Two US lawyers fined for submitting fake court citations from ChatGPT

#28
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why do you think that would be better than a warning or a fine?

Because it wasn't just a simple mistake. It was such egregious professional negligence that it calls into question not only the basic competence of the attorney, but also their basic sense of ethics.

To add onto this - the lawyers failed to verify their resources! This is something that every lawyer carefully pays attention to before submitting anything.

The fact that they did no research on ChatGPT, and they didn't verify the output from ChatGPT, is pretty bad.

They're being punished more so on how they used their resources, not for using ChatGPT.

Re: Two US lawyers fined for submitting fake court citations from ChatGPT

#29
post #4

That should be a career-ending move, not a fine.

Why so eager to end someone's career? He did a lazy/stupid thing. People do far worse things.

The client may want to sue them and seek damages or something and that'd be fair but I don't think their career should end. That's harsh.

Re: Two US lawyers fined for submitting fake court citations from ChatGPT

#30
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because it wasn't just a simple mistake. It was such egregious professional negligence that it calls into question not only the basic competence of the attorney, but also their basic sense of ethics.

To add onto this - the lawyers failed to verify their resources! This is something that every lawyer carefully pays attention to before submitting anything. The fact that they did no research on ChatGPT, and they didn't verify the output from ChatGPT, is pretty bad. They're being punished more so on how they used their resources, not for using ChatGPT.

> They're being punished more so on how they used their resources, not for using ChatGPT

Yes, exactly. If they'd used a human intern instead of ChatGPT, it wouldn't change the situation at all.

Post reply on HN