But the explanation and Ramirez’s promise to educate himself on the use of AI wasn’t enough, and the judge chided him for not doing his research before filing. “It is abundantly clear that Mr. Ramirez did not make the requisite reasonable inquiry into the law. Had he expended even minimal effort to do so, he would have discovered that the AI-generated cases do not exist. That the AI-generated excerpts appeared valid to Mr. Ramirez does not relieve him of his duty to conduct a reasonable inquiry,” Judge Dinsmore continued, before recommending that Ramirez be sanctioned for $15,000.
Falling victim to this a year or more after the first guy made headlines for the same is just stupidity.
Haven’t people already been disbarred over this? Turning in unvetted AI slop should get you fired from any job.
Different jurisdiction
Immediately there should be a contempt charge for disrespecting the Court.
I heard turning in AI Slop worked out pretty well for Arcane Season 2 writers.
Hold them in contempt. Put them in jail for a few days, then declare a mistrial due to incompetent counsel. For repeat offenders, file a formal complaint to the state bar.
Eh, they should file a complaint the first time, and the state bar can decide what to do about it.
“We have investigated ourselves and found nothing wrong”
The bar might get pretty ruthless for fake case citations.
I would hope that gross negligence and incompetence with come with severe consequences.
The state bar is not the state cops.
From the linked court document in the article: https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.insd.215482/gov.uscourts.insd.215482.99.0.pdf?ref=404media.co
“For the reasons set forth above, the Undersigned, in his discretion, hereby RECOMMENDS that Mr. Ramirez be personally SANCTIONED in the amount of $15,000 pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 11 for submitting to the Court and opposing counsel, on three separate occasions, briefs that contained citations to non-existent cases. In addition, the Undersigned REFERS the matter of Mr. Ramirez’s misconduct in this case to the Chief Judge pursuant to Local Rule of Disciplinary Enforcement 2(a) for consideration of any further discipline that may be appropriate”
Mr. Ramirez is the dumbass lawyer that didn’t check his dumbass AI. If you read above the paragraph I copied from, he gets laid into by the judge in writing to justify recommendation for sanctions and discipline. Good catch by the judge and the processes they have for this kind of thing.
I’m all for lawyers using AI, but that’s because I’m also all for them getting punished for every single incorrect thing they bring forward if they do not verify.
That is the problem with AI, if I have to check the output is valid then what’s the damn point?
It’s actually often easier to check an answer than coming up with an answer. Finding the square root of 66564 by hand isn’t easy, but checking if the answer is 257 is simple enough.
So, in principle, if the AI is better at guessing an answer than we are, it might still be useful. But it depends on the cost of guessing and the cost of checking.
Now if only an AI could actually find the square root of anything. They can’t do math, at least the models I’ve tried. I am aware that if they could do math, it would be a big deal, but really if it can’t analyze the actual content in my work files then it’s useless to me. It’s good at finding mathematical answers by putting in what you expect to get from 120 X 15.5, but doesn’t actually know the difference between 1860 and a picture of Judy Hopps in lingerie, and would be equally satisfied giving you one as the other.
Well, if by AI you mean large language models, they tend to do better at language tasks than math tasks. So a better example might be that it’s easier to get an LLM to write a statement for you and checking if it’s correct than writing the statement from the bottom.
The square root was just a clearer example. In the case of OP, it might very well be easier to have an LLM propose relevant case law and then check if that case law exists and is relevant, rather than having to find it yourself from square one.
You can get ideas, different approaches and concepts. Sort of rubber ducky thing in my case. It won’t solve the problem for me, but might hint me in the right direction.
Because AI is better than humans and finding relevant court cases. If you are a lawyer and you cite a court case that you didn’t even verify it exists you deserve that sanction and more.
Shareholder value. Thimg of all the new 2nd and 3rd yatchs they can buy now
“Why don’t we build another AI to fix the mistakes?”
I require $100 million funding for this though
For the last time, people need to stop treating AI like it removes their need for research, just because it sounds like it did its research. Check the work your tools do for you, damn it.
It’s Wikipedia all over again. Absolutely feel free to use the tool, e.g. Wikipedia, ChatGPT, whatever, but holy shit check the sources, my guy. This is embarrassing.
I hate people can even try to blame AI.
If I typo a couple extra zeroes because my laptop sucks, that doesn’t mean I didn’t fuck up. I fucked up because of a tool I was using, but I was still the human using that tool.
This is no different.
If a lawyer submits something to court that is fraudulent I don’t give a shit if he wrote it on a notepad or told the AI on his phone browser to do it.
He submitted it.
Start yanking law licenses and these lawyers will start re-evaluating if AI means they can fire all their human assistants and take on even more cases.
Stop acting like this shit is autonomous tools that strip responsibility from decisions, that’s literally how Elmo is about to literally dismantle our federal government.
And they’re 100% gonna blame the AI too.
I’m honestly surprised they haven’t claimed DOGE is run by AI yet
Exactly. If you want to use AI for something, cool, but you own the results. You can try suing the AI company for bad output, but you can’t use the AI as an excuse to get out of negative consequences for something you are expected to do.
In this case he got caught because smart judge without IA. In a few years the new generation of judges will also rely on AI, so basically AI will rule the cases and own the judicial system.
Great news for defendants though. I hope at my next trial I look over at the prosecutor’s screen and they’re reading off ChatGPT lmao
So long as your own lawyer isn’t doing the same, of course :)
I represent myself in all my cases :)
Works tirelessly? No, AI here!
But I was hysterically assured that AI was going to take all our jobs?
you sound like those republicans that mocked global warming when it snowed in Texas.
sure, won’t take your job today. in a decade? probably.
Going off the math and charts that OpenAI and DeepMind both published before the AI boom which correctly guessed performance to cost ratios of ChatGPT4: we’ve reached the peak of current models. AI is bust, mate. In particular, Deepmind concluded with infinite resources the models in use would never reach accurate human language capabilities.
You can say stuff like “they’ll just make new models, then!” but it doesn’t really work like that, the current models aren’t even new in the slightest it’s just the first time we’ve gotten people together to feed them power and data like logs into a woodchipper.
all I’m saying is don’t be so dismissive about AI taking jobs away from people. technology is improved daily, and all it takes is one smart asshole to make things worse for everyone else.
I think it’s more likely for a stupid asshole to make things worse for everyone else, which is exactly what somebody would be if they replaced human staff with defective chatbots.
Nice all the work that the lawyers saved will be offset by judges having to verify all the cases cited
The judge wrote that he “does not aim to suggest that AI is inherently bad or that its use by lawyers should be forbidden,” and noted that he’s a vocal advocate for the use of technology in the legal profession. “Nevertheless, much like a chain saw or other useful [but] potentially dangerous tools, one must understand the tools they are using and use those tools with caution,” he wrote. “It should go without saying that any use of artificial intelligence must be consistent with counsel’s ethical and professional obligations. In other words, the use of artificial intelligence must be accompanied by the application of actual intelligence in its execution.”
I won’t even go that far. I can very much believe that you can build an AI capable of doing perfectly-reasonable legal arguments. Might be using technology that looks a lot different from what we have today, but whatever.
The problem is that the lawyer just started using a new technology to produce material that he didn’t even validate, without determining whether-or-not it actually worked for what he wanted to do in its current state, and where there was clearly available material showing that it was not in that state.
It’s as if a shipbuilder started using random new substance in its ship hull without actually conducting serious tests on it or even looking at consensus in the shipbuilding industry as to whether the material could fill that role. Meanwhile, the substance is slowly dissolving in water. Just slapped it in the hull and sold it to the customer.
EDIT: Hmm. Actually, I thought that the judge was saying that the lawyer needed to use AI-generated stuff in a human-guided role, but upon consideration, I may in fact be violently agreeing with the judge. “Actual intelligence” may simply refer to what I’m saying that the lawyer should have done.
But this is exactly what AI is being marketed toward. All of Apple’s AI ads showcase dumb people who appear smart because the AI bails out their ineptitude.
I’ve been saying this for ages. Even as someone who’s more-or-less against the current implementation of AI, I think people who truly believe in AI should be fighting the hardest against bad uses of it. It gives AI a worse black eye every time something like this happens.
It’s as if a shipbuilder started using random new substance in its ship hull without actually conducting serious tests on it or even looking at consensus in the shipbuilding industry as to whether the material could fill that role. Meanwhile, the substance is slowly dissolving in water. Just slapped it in the hull and sold it to the customer.
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It’s an expression meaning you are arguing/fighting over something when both sides actually hold the same position and didn’t realize at first.
They’re synonyms in this case, so either works here
Yeah he basically called the lawyer an idiot. 😆
Why would one even get the idea to use AI for something like this?
“Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity, and I’m not sure about the universe.”
No, lazyness.
All you do is a quick search on the case to see if it’s real or not.
They bill enough each hour to get some interns to do this all day.
I’m pretty sure that just doing “quick searches” is exactly how he ended up with AI answers to begin with.
I don’t think PACER or the state equivalents use AI summary tools yet.
All you do is a quick search on the case to see if it’s real or not.
You could easily. We have resources such as LexusNexus or Westlaw which your firm should be paying for. Even searching on Google Scholar should be enough to verify. Stay away from Casetext though, it’s new and mostly AI. LN and WL also have AI integration but it’s not forced, you’re still capable of doing your own research.
I’ve been telling people this for a while, but everyone needs to treat AI like how we used to treat the wiki. It’s a good secondary source that can be used to find other more reliable sources, but it should never be used as your single standalone source.
I’m not going to sugarcoat it, AI is being forced everywhere you look and it is getting a bit difficult to get away from it, but it hasn’t taken over everything to the point where there is no longer any personal responsibility. People need to have some common sense and double check everything as they’ve been taught to do even before AI.
Why dont more AI services cite sources? Or just as a lawyer add that to your prompt and just check if they exist? I get fake sources on OpenAI sometimes but its obvious because the links are dead.
Cut the guy some slack. Instead of trying to put him in jail, bring AI front and center and try to use it in a methodical way…where does it help? How can this failure be prevented?
It can be prevented by people paid 400-1000 per hour spending time either writing own paperwork or paying others to actually write it.
LLMs are incapable of helping. If he cannot find time to construct his own legal briefs, maybe he should use part of his money to hire an AGI (otherwise known as a human) to help him.
That’s not true at all, they’re super helpful. I use them almost every day, they save me an insane amount of time and energy
What I don’t do is rely on it. I’m the developer, I know what’s going on, it has the memory of a goldfish. It also spits out code near instantly… Which I then read through and usually fix
But it makes less mistakes than I do writing dumb repetitive code. It will, 95% of the time, correctly tell me something in half the time it would take me to look it up, if not less
It’s nowhere close to a worker replacement, but it’s damn good at empowering people to do what they do
Sure. Look llms should be able to help, but only if there’s a human to bring meaning. Llms are basically… What’s that word… I’m thinking about it at the tip of my tongue… Word completion engines. So you think something up and it tells you what might be next. Its not how brains work but its like a calculator is to numbers…a tool. Just learn how to use it for a purpose rather than leat it barf out and answer.
