Martin Kaste, NPR; Penalties stack up as AI spreads through the legal system
""Recently we had 10 cases from 10 different courts on a single day," says Damien Charlotin, a researcher at the business school HEC Paris who keeps a worldwide tally of instances of courts sanctioning people for using erroneous information generated by AI...
The numbers started taking off last year, and Charlotin says the rate is still increasing. He counts a total of more than 1,200 to date, of which about 800 are from U.S. courts.
Penalties are also on the rise, he says. A federal court may have set a record last month with an order for a lawyer in Oregon to pay $109,700 in sanctions and costs for filing AI-generated errors.
The professional embarrassments even take place at the level of state supreme courts...
"I am surprised that people are still doing this when it's been in the news," says Carla Wale, associate dean of information & technology and director of the law library at the University of Washington School of Law. She's designing special training in AI ethics for students who are interested. But she also says the ethical rules aren't completely settled...
When lawyers get in trouble for using AI, it's because they've violated the long-standing rule that holds them responsible for the accuracy of their filings, regardless of how they were generated."
