Lawyers representing a passenger lawsuit against Avianca, the Colombian flag carrier, used an AI chatbot for research and ended up citing several bogus legal cases fabricated by the chatbot. The case was brought to court by Robert Mata, who claimed to have been injured by a service cart on a flight to JFK in August 2019. The chatbot that the lawyers relied on, OpenAI’s ChatGPT, is known for fabricating facts and sources, leading to inaccurate information. After Avianca’s lawyers noticed that the citations were false, Judge Kevin Castel summoned the lawyers to a hearing to argue why they should not be sanctioned. Despite claims that chatbots are adept at performing complex roles, they are not always reliable sources of factual information.
Avianca is a flagship airline of Colombia and the second oldest in the world. It operates flights to more than 90 destinations across the Americas and Europe and is a member of the Star Alliance.
Robert Mata is a passenger who launched a lawsuit against Avianca after claiming he was injured by a service cart on a flight to JFK from El Salvador (SAL) in August 2019. His lawyer, Steven A. Schwartz of Levidow, Levidow & Oberman, submitted a brief that contained half a dozen fake legal cases to the court.
