British Columbia lawyers were ordered to pay opposing counsel's fees for the time it took to discover that two precedent cases were created by ChatGPT. CBC News reports: This case would have set a strong precedent for divorced fathers to bring their children to China — if these cases were true. But instead of enjoying a victory in court, the billionaire Vancouver lawyer embroiled in an acrimonious divorce finds out by the time the incident she wanted to cite was caused by ChatGPT. I was ordered to personally compensate my client's ex-wife's attorney for the time it took. In a ruling released Monday, a BC Supreme Court judge reprimanded lawyer Chong Ke for including two AI “hallucinations” in an application filed last December. This incident was never brought up in Mr. Ke's case. Once she learned they didn't exist, they were withdrawn.
Judge David Mashara said he didn't think the lawyers intended to mislead the court, but he was still troubled. “Unfortunately, as this case makes clear, generative AI remains no substitute for the expertise that the judicial system requires from lawyers,” Masuhara said in his “concluding comments” accompanying the ruling. “The ability to select and use a full range of technology tools, including those powered by AI, is critical.”
