Do they just not understand how ChatGPT works? Do they think it's a search engine?
[dead]
Two US lawyers fined for submitting fake court citations from ChatGPT
41–50 of 170 posts
Re: Two US lawyers fined for submitting fake court citations from ChatGPT
#42Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Sure, but when you Google a lawyer's name and this comes up you may choose not to use him.
Re: Two US lawyers fined for submitting fake court citations from ChatGPT
#43Earlier quoted context omitted.
They didn't know it could lie? But also, pretty sure Doctors and Lawyers are among the least trusted/highest corruption professions. All that schooling is a barrier to entry to keep outsiders away, it doesnt guarantee competence. Basically once you get in, graduation rates are close to 100%.
You’re very wrong about the perception of doctors. According to polls, doctors are the 2nd most trusted profession. https://news.gallup.com/poll/388649/military-brass-judges-am... My wife runs the resident eduction for her division and they are very aware of the dangers of sending an incompetent doctor out into the world to practice. They’ll force them through extra training and make them repeat residency if they hav…
> According to polls, doctors are the 2nd most trusted profession.
n=1 anecdote here:
When I was in research track biochem and bumped into premed students, nearly the entire population of premed didn't seem to care about the science behind what they were learning. They formed a very different social clique. The "top students" in that set were sharing previous years' organic chemistry exams and none of them would read papers or get involved in research. They were entirely disinterested in the science.
In my interactions with general practitioners, I like to talk about medicines' method of actions, pharmacology, the actual biochemistry behind diseases. Most of them seem to have no clue or retention of this information. I'm not trying to challenge them, either -- I'm generally curious to learn.
That's not to say all doctors are like that. A lot of the surgeons and specialists I know are walking tomes of information.
Re: Two US lawyers fined for submitting fake court citations from ChatGPT
#44I think many commenters here are unaware of exactly how forehead-slappingly WTF it is that these lawyers did. Even if ChatGPT were replaced with a well respected human legal expert saying exactly the same things, they still cited case law that they couldn't verify the existence of, let alone that the context of the ruling was actually helpful to their cause.
Then when a judge told them "hey, we can't find any of these cases, what the hell is going on?" they doubled down. They're basically saying "trust me bro, these rulings totally happened and they totally say we're right".
Re: Two US lawyers fined for submitting fake court citations from ChatGPT
#45Earlier quoted context omitted.
You’re very wrong about the perception of doctors. According to polls, doctors are the 2nd most trusted profession. https://news.gallup.com/poll/388649/military-brass-judges-am... My wife runs the resident eduction for her division and they are very aware of the dangers of sending an incompetent doctor out into the world to practice. They’ll force them through extra training and make them repeat residency if they hav…
> According to polls, doctors are the 2nd most trusted profession. n=1 anecdote here: When I was in research track biochem and bumped into premed students, nearly the entire population of premed didn't seem to care about the science behind what they were learning. They formed a very different social clique. The "top students" in that set were sharing previous years' organic chemistry exams and none of them would read…
I don’t really know, but it might be okay for them to not focus on that knowledge.
Re: Two US lawyers fined for submitting fake court citations from ChatGPT
#46LegalEagle did a video on this case two weeks ago, digging into it in some more depth: https://youtu.be/oqSYljRYDEM
They lied to a judge, doubled down, showed further incompetence by admitting to not knowing how the legal reference they supposedly quoted was even structured, then lied to a judge again trying to get more time to get their story straight, and all it cost them was $5000? And even then they have the guts to say they disagree with the judge?
Levidow, Levidow & Oberman must either be run by fools or take the rest of the world for fools.
I can understand how the rubber stamping lawyer signing all the paperwork got off easy; he was just signing documents because the lawyer who supposedly did all the work for the case couldn't operate in the court the case was transfered to.
The other lawyer, the one who did the AI equivalent from copy pasting from the summary page of Google, should not be deemed fit to practice law.
Re: Two US lawyers fined for submitting fake court citations from ChatGPT
#47Earlier quoted context omitted.
> According to polls, doctors are the 2nd most trusted profession. n=1 anecdote here: When I was in research track biochem and bumped into premed students, nearly the entire population of premed didn't seem to care about the science behind what they were learning. They formed a very different social clique. The "top students" in that set were sharing previous years' organic chemistry exams and none of them would read…
I don’t really know, but it might be okay for them to not focus on that knowledge.
Seems like we could train a lot of people for a lot cheaper if that was the case, though.
Re: Two US lawyers fined for submitting fake court citations from ChatGPT
#48> Levidow, Levidow & Oberman said in a statement on Thursday that its lawyers “respectfully” disagreed with the court that they had acted in bad faith. “We made a good-faith mistake in failing to believe that a piece of technology could be making up cases out of whole cloth,” it said. Seems like they still don't get it. It's not good faith representation of your client, it's not good lawyering to interrogate a chatbo…
> Seems like they still don't get it.
Oh they get it. ChatGPT explained it to them, and then suggested that they take this position because it was the least bad option.
Re: Two US lawyers fined for submitting fake court citations from ChatGPT
#49Earlier quoted context omitted.
Where is this doubling down? It certainly isn't in this article.
See https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nysd.57... - Page 2, the judge uses the very words "doubled down": "But if the matter had ended with Respondents coming clean about their actions shortly after they received the defendant’s March 15 brief questioning the existence of the cases, or after they reviewed the Court’s Orders of April 11 and 12 requiring production of the cases, the record now would l…
I guess that really depends on what you consider doubling down.
-On March 1, They filed a submission with fake citations from chatGPT.
-On April 11th court told them the cases couldnt be found and to produce full transcripts of the cases by April 25.
-On April 25, They came back and said they don't have them and couldnt find the cases, only the limited excerpts provided in "online databases".
-On May 4, the court asked them why they ought not be sanctioned for citing non-existent cases to the Court.
-On May 25, They said we found these cases on ChatGPT and thought they were real.
I guess the more transparent response on April 25 would have been to say "We weren't able to find the full cases and we now believe they probably dont exist ". Im not sure if the latter part is material if they already admitted they cant find the cases. If you cant produce the cases, is the reason relevant at that point?
Re: Two US lawyers fined for submitting fake court citations from ChatGPT
#50That 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.
What they did was the professional equivalent of a surgeon thinking "I wonder what'd happen if I chopped out this thingie?", then acting on that impulse, then lying about his actions.