Such an unusual situation occurred in the case of Roberto Mata against the Colombian airline Avianca. A customer sued the carrier after a snack cart injured him on board the plane. Mat was represented by Steven Schwartz, a lawyer with 30 years of experience. The lawyer not only did not win the case, but also his long-term career hangs by a thread. All because of too much trust in artificial intelligence and, well, probably your own laziness.
He relied too much on artificial intelligence. Now he can answer himself in court
As the lawyer writes, he decided to make his life a bit easier and – in preparation for the trial – he asked ChatGPT to find similar cases of passengers who decided to sue the airline. The AI did a great job. The chatbot found many similar cases in which carriers from around the world were sued – including China Southern Airlines, KLM or United Airlines. Schwartz trusted artificial intelligence implicitly and decided to use these cases in court as support for his arguments. The problem is that each of these cases was completely made up by ChatGPT.
The lawsuit was quickly dismissed because neither Avianca’s defense lawyers nor the trial judge himself could find any of the disputes that Schwartz presented. The lawyer was summoned for questioning, and during his sworn testimony, he admitted that he had not searched for the cases himself, but had asked ChatGPT to do so. He explained that he had no idea that a popular chatbot could give him false information. What’s more, as proof, he presented screenshots showing the course of the conversation with the program. He added that in one case he asked AI if the case was true. The bot confirmed, arguing that evidence for this can be found in “reputable legal databases”.
Now Schwartz’s career hangs by a thread. The lawyer will face trial next month for using faked cases in his trial. It is not clear what the exact penalty is for a careless lawyer.
Source: Gazeta
Mabel is a talented author and journalist with a passion for all things technology. As an experienced writer for the 247 News Agency, she has established a reputation for her in-depth reporting and expert analysis on the latest developments in the tech industry.
