Two apologetic lawyers responding to an angry judge in Manhattan federal court last week blamed ChatGPT for tricking them into including fictitious legal research in a court filing.
Attorneys Steven Schwartz and Peter LoDuca are facing possible punishment over a filing in a lawsuit against an airline that included references to past court cases that Schwartz thought were real but were actually invented by the artificial intelligence-powered chatbot.
Schwartz explained that he used the groundbreaking program as he hunted for legal precedents supporting a client’s case against the Colombian airline Avianca for an injury incurred on a 2019 flight.
