Roberto Mata’s case against Avianca was not much different from many other personal injury cases filed in New York federal court. Mata and his attorney Peter Loduka allege that Avianca seriously injured Mata in 2019 when he was “hit by a metal catering cart” on a flight to New York.
Avianca has sought to dismiss the lawsuit. Mata’s attorneys predictably opposed the allegations, citing various legal decisions, as is common in court disputes. Then everything fell apart.
An attorney for Avianca Airlines told the court that it did not find the numerous cases cited by Loduka in his reply. Federal Judge P. Kevin Castell requested his LoDuca to provide copies of nine of his judicial decisions that were apparently used.
In response, LoDuca filed the full text of eight lawsuits in federal court. But in the filing, Castel cited what appeared to be a fictitious text and a “fake judicial ruling with false citations and false internal citations,” which only compounded the problem. said.
The culprit that eventually turned out to be ChatGPT. OpenAI’s popular chatbot “hallucinates” (a term used to describe artificial intelligence systems simply fabricating false information), spewing out cases and arguments that are entirely fictional. LoDuca and another attorney, Steven Schwartz, appear to have used his ChatGPT to craft the allegations and subsequent legal texts.
Schwartz, an associate at the law firm of Levidow, Levidow & Oberman, told the court that he was the one abusing ChatGPT and that LoDuca had no “role to carry out the research in question” and “how to say it.” I had no knowledge of what was done,” he said. Research has been done. “
For the first time, the opposing attorney and judge realized that the case did not exist, giving the attorneys involved an opportunity to admit error.
However, LoDuca and his company appear to have further ramped up their use of ChatGPT to generate false legal judgments when asked to provide them, beyond just the claims initially in question. Loduka and Schwartz may now face legal sanctions, which could lead to disqualification.
According to court filings, the defense’s motion “many references to non-existent cases.”
“The court faces an unprecedented situation,” Castell said. He has set a hearing for June 8, when both Loduka and Schwartz will be called to account. Both attorneys did not respond to CNBC’s requests for comment.