Manhattan attorneys Steven Schwartz and Peter LoDuca recently brought a case to the district court, which they thought was a slam dunk. Their client was seeking damages for an injury sustained on a 2019 flight with Avianca, the Colombian airline. Schwartz, hoping to provide concrete evidence supporting his claim, submitted a comprehensive filing to the court, referencing several past cases where other plaintiffs had prevailed against other airlines for injuries similar to the client’s. However, there was a major issue with his filing. Some of the cases were entirely fictitious, and the airlines mentioned did not exist. It turned out that Schwartz had asked ChatGPT, an artificial intelligence-powered chatbot, to conduct legal research, assuming that it would provide accurate and valid results.
During the court hearing, the judge lashed out at the attorneys, calling the legal filing legal gibberish. Despite Schwartz’s best intentions, he hadn’t realized that ChatGPT could provide fabricated information. In February, an experiment was conducted with ChatGPT on a rather obscure subject, and it generated a list of five excellent books, two of which did not exist. Hence, the system’s credibility is questionable when it comes to creating fiction.
However, ChatGPT has been successful in other areas of research. Recently, researchers collaborated with OpenAI’s ChatGPT to develop a tomato-harvesting robot, marking a new era in human-AI collaboration in robotics. By posing a question to the system about the future’s greatest challenges for humanity, the researchers gave it the full control to suggest ideas for prolonging the species. After extensive discussions with ChatGPT, the decision was made to focus on food supply and create a tomato-harvesting robot. The bot provided valuable input, determining the best motor to use, and the ideal material for the robot’s gripping arm to avoid damaging the tomatoes.
While ChatGPT’s abilities hold promise, it’s essential to consider its limitations in legal research. It is crucial to verify results to avoid fabricated legal research. However, the AI system continues to be an important tool in scientific research and technological development and has shown great potential in aiding researchers in achieving better accuracy and efficiency in problem-solving.
