A lawyer sought help from ChatGPT to bolster an airline lawsuit injury claim.
It backfired spectacularly with the lawyer now facing sanctions.
Lawyer Steven A. Schwartz, leading a claim against airline Avianca, submitted a brief based on ChatGPT research.
From a prompt, the AI listed three previous precedent cases – but they turned out to be fictional.
When reviewing the brief, Avianca’s lawyers found they didn’t exist.
The bogus cases were titled Martinez v. Delta Air Lines, Zicherman v. Korean Air Lines and Varghese v. China Southern Airlines.
“It seemed clear when we didn’t recognize any of the cases that something was amiss,” Avianca’s lawyer Bart Banino said.
Passenger Roberto Mata sued Avianca last year, claiming a food cart injured his knee during a US bound flight.
In an affidavit Schwartz admitted he had ‘consulted ChatGPT to supplement’ his research.
ChatGPT was ‘a source that has revealed itself to be unreliable,’ he said.
Schwartz and his law firm Levidow, Levidow & Oberman could face sanctions.
Ironically, ChatGPT passed the bar exam recently, with a score in the top 10%.
It has also aced several professional medical and accountancy exams.
