Major issues are starting to emerge concerning the use of AI in legal cases, with legal experts highlighting three key incidents.
The first incident saw a California judge penalise a law firm $31,000 after an attorney admitted using AI to generate a filing that included false information.
In a separate incident, another California-based judge flagged another error in a filing submitted by AI company Anthropic, which included a false citation in a legal article.
The most serious incident took place in Israel, where prosecutors submitted a request to keep a defendant’s phone as evidence, but mistakenly cited non-existent laws; the defendant’s attorney accused them of using AI to generate their request, which they admitted to.
All three incidents highlight serious problems with courts being able to rely on accurate and backed-up documents, traits that AI models often fail to deliver.
Experts say that whilst the problem is increasing, it’s not yet at the stage where a judge’s decision could be wholly influenced by AI-generated output.