Using artificial intelligence (AI) to assist in research has become an everyday norm, although many will not admit it because they do not want to be labeled as lazy. A career as a lawyer requires citing old cases to strengthen arguments in court. There have now been several cases where AI has been used and it hallucinates producing non-existent case citations.
The High Court of England and Wales last week issued a warning to lawyers to be careful if they use AI to conduct case research. They must ensure that every case cited by the AI is authentic and exists. Failure to do so will result in lawyers being fined. The court did not ban the use of AI to facilitate the case research process, but rather stressed that lawyers must ensure that all information is correct before filing documents.
In addition to citing non-existent cases, AI has been found to produce non-existent quotations from valid cases. Incidents of cases cited as references were found to be irrelevant to the case being tried. Failure to ensure that AI documents go to court can result in lawyers being held in contempt of court and becoming police cases.