Amid OpenAI CEO Sam Altman calling for stricter regulation of artificial intelligence (AI) for months, lawyers in New York have been sanctioned for using fake ChatGPT cases in legal brief, the media has reported. The fictitious case citations were generated by the viral AI chatbot, ChatGPT. The attorneys, Peter LoDuca and Steven Schwartz were made to pay $5,000 fine, says a report by CNBC.
According to US District Judge P Kevin Castel in Manhattan ordered lawyers Steven Schwartz, Peter LoDuca and their law firm Levidow, Levidow & Oberman to pay a $5,000 fine in total. The lawyers were sanctioned by New York federal judge for submitting a legal brief written by ChatGPT, which included citations of non-existent court cases.
The judge found the lawyers acted in bad faith and made "acts of conscious avoidance and false and misleading statements to the court."
Levidow, Levidow and Oberman were quoted as saying in a statement by news agency Reuters that its lawyers "respectfully" disagreed with the court that they acted in bad faith. "We made a good faith mistake in failing to believe that a piece of technology could be making up cases out of whole cloth," the firm's statement said.
Lawyers for Schwartz said he declined to comment. LoDuca did not immediately reply to a request for comment, and his lawyer said they are reviewing the decision, the Reuters report added.
Meanwhile, the creator of ChatGPT has been lobbying the European Union (EU) to reduce regulations for AI, reports said last week. To recall, OpenAI had "threatened" to leave the EU over AI Act a couple of weeks back, but later said it has no plans to do so. The EU is currently in the middle of bringing in the AI Act, which is a rigorous set of rules intended to protect citizens from the ongoing advancements of AI. According to a report by Time, OpenAI has been lobbying the EU to reduce particular sections of the AI Act before it becomes a law.