Birmingham, ALA, (AP) – A federal judge said on Wednesday that it was considering sanctions against lawyers of a high price hired to defend the Alabama penitentiary system after Chatgpt was used to write two judicial files which included quotes of nonexistent cases.
American district judge Anna Manasco held an audience in Birmingham to question the lawyers of the butler’s snow company about deposits. She said there had been five false quotes in two files before the Federal Court. Manasco said that at the national level, there had been broad war warnings About the use of artificial intelligence To generate legal deposits due to the potential for inaccuracies.
Manasco said she was considering a series of sanctions, including fines. She gave the company 10 days to file a brief with the court.
Butler Snow’s lawyers apologized several times during the hearing.
They said that a firm partner, Matt Reeves, used Chatgpt to seek case law, but did not check the information before adding it to two deposits to the Federal Court. These quotes have proven to be “hallucinations” – which means incorrect quotes – by the AI system, they said. Four lawyers have signed the documents with the information, including Reeves.
“Butler Snow is embarrassed by what happened here, what was against the right judgment and the policy of the company. There is no excuse for the use of Chatgpt to obtain legal authority and not to verify the sources it has provided, even if to support well -founded law principles,” wrote the lawyers of the company in a response to the judge.
Reeves told the judge that he alone was responsible for false quotes and that “I hope that your honor would not punish my colleagues.”
Alabama has paid millions of dollars to the company to defend the state penitentiary system and its officials in prosecution. This includes the representation of the State as a defendant in a trial of the Ministry of Justice alleging that prisoners live in violent and cruel conditions.
The deposits in question were carried out in a trial brought by an inmate who was stabbed several times at the Correctional Center of William E. Donaldson in the county of Jefferson. He alleys that prison officials fail to ensure the security of detainees.
Manasco also questioned Bill Lunsford, head of the Butler Snow division who manages the penitentiary dispute, who signed the documents. The Alabama Attorney General appointed Lunsford as an assistant prosecutor because he represents the state before the court.
Lunsford wrote in an answer to the judge he scanned on the documents before depositing them but has not made a detailed review since he had been examined by Reeves. He told the judge that the cabinet had been proactive in the warning of lawyers for the limits of artificial intelligence.
