Lawyers could face ‘severe’ penalties for fake AI-generated citations, UK court warns
The High Court of England and Wales says that lawyers have to take stronger steps to prevent the abuse of artificial intelligence in their work.
In a statement Judge Victoria Sharp wrote two recent cases and wrote that generative AI tools such as Chatgpt “are unable to do reliable legal investigation”.
“Such tools can apparently produce coherent and plausible answers to prompts, but those coherent and plausible answers can prove to be completely incorrect,” Rechter Sharp wrote. “The answers can make self -assured claims that are simply not true.”
That does not mean that lawyers AI cannot use in their research, but she said they have a professional duty “to check the accuracy of such research by referring to authoritative sources before they use it in the course of their professional work.”
Judge Sharp suggested that the growing number of cases in which lawyers (including, on the American side, lawyers represent large AI platforms) have cited what seems to be with AI-generated lies suggests that more should be done to ensure that the guidance is followed and that the lawyers will be followed with their duties before the court, and she will be said, and she and she would be said, and she and she would be and she said and she and she would be aware, and she and she she and she and she she and she and she she and she and she she and she and she she and she and she she and she she and she and she she, and she and she she and she and she she and she and she was the laws. on the law.
In one of the cases in question, a lawyer who represented a man who sought compensation against two banks who submitted an application with 45 quotes – 18 of those cases did not exist, while many others did not contain the quotes attributed to them, did not support the statements for which they were quoted and had no relevance for the subject of the application “.
In the other, a lawyer wrote a man who had been deported from his house in London a court requesting five cases that did not seem to exist. (The lawyer denied the use of AI, although she said that the quotes may have come from AI -generated summaries that appeared in “Google of Safari”.) Judge Sharp said that although the court decided not to start any contempt procedure that “is not a precedent”.
“Lawyers who do not meet their professional obligations in this respect risk serious sanction,” she added.
Both lawyers were referred or referred to professional supervisors. Judge Sharp noted that when lawyers do not pay their duties to the court, the powers of the court vary from ‘public admonition’ to the imposition of costs, contempt procedures or even ‘referral to the police’.
