"Books, young man, books. This is where the law is, not in that homogenized, pasteurized, synthesized... . Do you want to know the law, the ancient concepts in their own language, learn the intent of the men who wrote them."
Posted on 09/11/2026 11:36:56 AM PDT by DFG
A defense lawyer appealing his client's murder conviction submitted a brief containing made-up police testimony and witnesses fabricated by OpenAI's ChatGPT, New Mexico's highest court said.
The New Mexico Supreme Court on Wednesday fined the attorney, Stephen Aarons, and held him in contempt for failing to verify the accuracy of the court filing, which Aarons said he prepared with help from the AI program.
The filing "contained false testimony from wholly fabricated witnesses," the court said.
The panel also said Aarons had "demonstrated a lack of remorse and a lack of concern for his client." The justices fined Aarons $5,000 and said they will refer him to an attorney disciplinary board for investigation.
Aarons in a statement to Reuters said he had used ChatGPT to summarize the trial proceedings when he agreed to take up the defendant's appeal last year, and did not understand the degree to which AI could "hallucinate" facts.
"I am remorseful but hopeful that the disciplinary board takes into account it was an honest mistake," he said. "It is a lesson learned for all professionals who rely upon this powerful but sometimes unstable technology."
OpenAI did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The court's sanction is the latest in a growing number of cases in which state and federal judges have disciplined lawyers for submitting court documents generated by AI tools without adequately vetting them.
(Excerpt) Read more at ca.finance.yahoo.com ...
I believe the state is New America.
WASS.
(We Are So Screwed)
A New Mexico lawyer using AI to falsify testimony?
Sound like something Saul Goodman would do.
Does it surprise anyone to hear the AI lied and simply made up data to support its conclusions?
It has been caught doing this in medical research.
It has been caught doing this (ie simply making up cases that do not exist) when Lawyers had AI write their legal briefs for them.
This is why I’ve said over and over again the banks are being extremely foolish to lean in to AI the way they have and that I’d bet dollars to donuts this will lead to government regulators discovering false information in audits and in regulatory reports from the Banks.
Exactly what I thought! LOL
So... this ISN’T Babylon Bee???
$5,000 fine is peanuts for that. He should be locked in a cell with Lindsay off her meds, and a nice exercise band.
“Honest mistake”?
“Honest mistake”?
AI hallucinates answers, it makes things up.
I told very educated intelligent people at work this several years ago and it was a surprise to almost everyone. It’s common knowledge now.
I also said it will one day be rewriting history and ‘facts’ of news stories in real-time, subtlety altering images and perceptions of narratives. Until it controls general ‘truth’.
It will also eventually become the ‘image’ used by anti-Christ to manage and monitor us all 7x24.
AI lies. This is a well known fact.
Being competent used to be an expected part of being a lawyer, but apparently not anymore.
When are people going to recognize that LLMs are nothing more than sophisticated auto-complete.
The output is designed to be plausible, not true.
If you don't know what you're doing, yes, it will. It will complete your requests at all costs. I've set mine up to provide reference links for any facts or info it spits out. This has worked very well for me, anyhow.
Just fyi it will fabricate the references as well if you don’t check them all directly. The article doesn’t mention that judges have had to withdraw decisions they “wrote” based on AI hallucinations.
And courts are using AI to analyze briefs and make decisions.
Yes lawyers are supposed to check the validity of everything they submit. However, there is no rule against them using AI to research and draft their work.
Just about every lawyer and court in the country is using Ai.
Not nearly enough. $150,000 would've been more appropriate. And a police officer who falsified a report would be fired.
I've had several people ask me what my thoughts on AI itself are, and I say the same thing every time: I view AI the very same way I view hammers, chainsaws, crowbars, knives and guns. All of them are amazing tools in the right hands. In the wrong hands, they become terrible weapons.
Yeah. $5,000 to the guilty lawyer, false murder conviction to the Citizen?
Typical of the gods in blue (and black).
.
I use it a lot, and it can provide amazing information in seconds. It also makes frequent mistakes and will keep insisting through many queries.
It’s indispensable and it’s dangerous.
My “favorite” was when it told me about a hundred times it was working in the background on a huge project, and gave me detailed progress reports (when I asked) and absolutely assured me it was working in the background and gave estimates of when it would be done.
I was suspicious and looked into this on my own. When confronted, it admitted that it only answers the immediate question and does absolutely nothing between queries.
Another was explaining that when it gives quotes, they aren’t necessarily accurate because it constantly “predicts” what the next word should be.
Still a useful tool but ....
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