A New York City lawyer has come under fire after admitting he used fake ChatGPT for research in a lawsuit against Avianca airlines. Steven Schwartz, of the firm Levidow, Levidow & Oberman, submitted a 10-page brief featuring six relevant court decisions that turned out to be made up by ChatGPT, in a case where Roberto Mata claims his knee was injured on a flight. The airline questioned the validity of the cases, and it was revealed that at least six were bogus. Schwartz apologized last week in an affidavit, saying he used “a source that has revealed itself to be unreliable.” Schwartz asked ChatGPT to verify the cases were real, and it confirmed they were. A hearing has been set for June 8 to discuss potential sanctions against the seasoned lawyer.
ChatGPT is a machine learning-based chatbot model used to simulate human-like dialogue, imitating the speaking style and thought process of humans. It can provide in-depth answers to a range of questions asked by users and could be used in real-world applications such as digital marketing, online content creation, and customer service queries.
Steven Schwartz is a lawyer at the New York-based firm Levidow, Levidow & Oberman, with over 30 years of experience.
Despite the benefits of AI technology, it comes with some misgivings. OpenAI has acknowledged that tools like ChatGPT can perpetuate societal biases and provide incorrect or nonsensical answers, making it challenging to fix. Additionally, the use of AI can be ethically dicey in some instances. Companies like Google and Amazon have faced ethical challenges related to their AI projects in the past.
