[lynx23]

Wait, this is handled as "ChatGPT made up these cases" and not as "Layers deliberately used ChatGPT to fabricate stuff"? Is anyone really believing a lawyer is that stupid? I know, adssume good intentions and all, but in this case, really?

[jeroenhd]

I believe some lawyers are that stupid.

I also believe lawyers who are stupid enough not to verify ChatGPT's responses should be treated as if they willfully lied to the court. "Oops, I didn't know" is a good defence when you're caught accidentally walking on the grass, not when you're in court.

[wintogreen74]

"Oops, I didn't know" has never been a valid defense for anyone; should definitely not be for lawyers, aka "people who are paid to know".

[HelloNurse]

Are there traditional American puns with "lawyer" vs. "liar"?

[pclmulqdq]

This appears to be an "individual vs company" case, so I think expecting some cost-cutting on the individual's side is normal. Just not done this poorly.

[lamontcg]

> Is anyone really believing a lawyer is that stupid?

There's over a million lawyers in the United States.

You'd expect at least one of them to be a 1-in-a-million level of bad, or 4.7 standard deviations below the mean assuming a Gaussian distribution of competency.

An average person would normally never come across that lawyer in their lifetime, but media will find that lawyer and amplify their mistakes to everyone in the population.

[codeflo]

There's no reason to believe it's a Gaussian distribution around the mean. Given that there are admission tests, you'd rather hope it's only the tail end of a Gaussian distribution, with the cutoff being what's required to pass the bar.

[lamontcg]

There's going to be a distribution around the mean of the proctoring of those tests. There may even be outright corruption and bribery going on at the tail end.

[drc500free]

Is there a term for this "winning the lottery jackpot is unbelievably unlikely, but every week we hear about someone winning it" effect? People get it when the media reports on the lottery, but somehow miss the amplifying effect on pretty much any other topic.

[jmopp]

There is Littlewood's Law: a miracle (defined as a one in a million event) happens about once a month (assuming you observe one event every second and are observing your surroundings for 8 hours a day). There is also the law of truly large numbers: given a sufficiently large sample space, you will observe the very unlikely events

[pkilgore]

In an adversarial system, you know that at the very least your opponent is checking your cases (you should also assume the Judge/clerks are too, but I never practiced enough in State courts to know how well that holds. In Federal District, it's absolutely true). Usually it's for incredibly small things, like unquoted/cited distinguishing remarks, later cases reversing the decision, and misquotes. So a whole case not existing is going to stand out like crazy.

Occam's Razor here is that this person was lazy, ignorant, careless, stupid, or any combination of those. To be intentionally fraudulent in this circumstance is the equivalent of trying to steal a gun from a cop. You're fucking with the one person in society who definitely has the training, motivation, and willingness to stop you.

[pavon]

I can totally see a lawyer who hasn't been following closely read headlines about ChatGPT acing the Bar Exam, and start using it without being too skeptical.

What gets me is that they doubled down when asked to provide copies. Seriously, when that happens, you don't ask ChatGPT if the cases are real, you do your own damn search, and apologize profusely for your mistake. That really makes me question whether they were trying to pull a fast one, and then play dumb when caught, or if they really are that stupid.

[Fauntleroy]

I'd imagine the lawyer didn't understand what ChatGPT really is. Many people seem to think that it "knows" things, and they took that at face value.

[anigbrowl]

Especially after they replied to the first queries with the assurance that the citations were real and one that couldn't be found was taken from an unpublished opinion. Negligent at best. Should be a career-ending move for the guy; he can always pivot into the burgeoning legal AI field.

[droopyEyelids]

A very intelligent person can simultaneously be very stupid, and stupid behavior can be increased with tight deadlines or a high workload.

[Projectiboga]

It was his first try with the tech. He should have popped the cases into West Law and at least skimmed the briefs, he is at a big firm with that subscription. I'm not a lawyer and I at least have a clue for the legal research shortcuts. This guy must have been drinking and or having an affair to have pit so little effort into his first try using a new tech. I'm guessing there is a risk of humorous legal parody getting scooped up by the chat-bot.

[laratied]

He might not have thought it was a shortcut though.

If he thinks it is like querying a database and had never heard of hallucinations then this could just be an honest mistake. Especially if he thinks AI would be smarter than a database.

My first thought that he was a mess in general but we really don't have enough information. Like the other guy saying he cheated in life, it is pretty absurd to infer that.

[lamontcg]

My bet would be that he cheated his way through life and the bar somehow and landed the job on the basis of his looks and presentation or who he knew or something like that, so asking ChatGPT and cheating on it was more natural than using actual legal research tools.

[Izkata]

With how management has been talking about "AI" over here, yeah, it wouldn't surprise me.

I think non-technical people, lawyers included, are being duped into thinking the true singularity-level AI revolution just happened.

[dpiers]

You’re confusing stupidity with narrow expertise. I know CPAs who don’t file their own taxes because that wasn’t the focus of their niche. I know surgeons who don’t know the difference between a transistor and a resistor.

Plenty of smart people don’t understand how ChatGPT works or what it’s limitations are. A bunch of nerds built the best BS generator in history and marketed it as a super intelligent computer. If you ask it for relevant cases and it spits out a bunch of plausible information, is it really on them to know the tool is just really good at making things up?

[CodesInChaos]

There are plenty of cases of otherwise intelligent people trusting GPT output too much. For example the professor who asked ChatGPT if it wrote the homework students handed in, and took the "yes" at face value.

[freejazz]

The lawyer didn't use ChatGPT to purposefully fabricate cases, he just relied on GPT and assumed it wasn't lying.

[lynx23]

How do you know this?

[freejazz]

Context clues! Logic? Like, why would the lawyer intentionally have ChatGPT make up bogus cases? Did you read them? They don't make any sense at all and were not likely to trick anyone. He's clearly just being lazy. My suggestion is, unlike the ChatGPT attorney, you use your head and apply some thought to the situation. Imagine what you can now do with this power!

[throwawayadvsec]

why do you assume being a lawyer requires intelligence?