Here’s What Happens When Your Lawyer Uses ChatGPT: A recent real-life case of Roberto Mata v. Avianca Inc. showed that when AI is used to cut corners on legal briefs, it doesn’t always end pleasantly. The 10-page brief, created by lawyer Steven A. Schwartz of the firm Levidow, Levidow & Oberman, had cited several relevant cases, but when Avianca’s lawyers tried to verify them, they couldn’t. It soon came to light that AI powered chatbot, ChatGPT, was the source of the false information. Although Mr. Schwartz denied any intent to deceive the court or the airline, Manhattan federal judge P. Kevin Castel ordered a hearing for June 8 to discuss potential sanctions.
ChatGPT is an AI powered chatbot designed to generate realistic responses by making guesses about which fragments of text should follow other sequences, feeding them billions of examples of text from the internet. In the court case, the program had pulled fragments from existing cases, creating entirely false opinions. This has caused the legal profession to debate the value and the dangers of A.I software like ChatGPT and the need for lawyers to carefully verify whatever information it provides. As a result, Professor Stephen Gillers at the New York University School of Law, noted that “The discussion now among the bar is how to avoid exactly what this case describes.”
The company mentioned in the article is Avianca Inc. Avianca Inc. is a Colombian airline which was founded in 1919 and is the oldest commercial airline in the world. It’s second-largest airline in Latin America and has a presence in countries like Peru, Ecuador, Mexico and Brazil. It employs over 17,000 people and operates more than 1000 flights a day to over 100 destinations with its fleet of over 100 aircraft. Avianca has been credited for its continuous investment in customer satisfaction and service delivery, as well as its historical performance as the longest-running airline in the world.
The person mentioned in the article is Steven A. Schwartz. Mr. Schwartz is a lawyer from the firm Levidow, Levidow & Oberman, who created the 10-page brief for the Roberto Mata v. Avianca Inc case. Mr. Schwartz has more than three decades of practice in law in New York and had no intent to deceive the court or the airline. He claimed to be unaware of the possibility that the content provided by the AI chatbot could be false. In the end, he was forced to offer an affidavit to the court, saying he “greatly regrets” relying on ChatGPT and will never do so without absolute verification of its authenticity.
