Stupid News: Michael Cohen Submitted AI Generated Cases

Disgraced former Trump fixer Michael Cohen and his counsel, David Schwartz, find themselves in a precarious position after submitting three non-existent cases in a motion seeking early termination of Cohen’s supervised release.

The computer AI manufactured citations were intended to provide precedent to allow the early termination of Cohen’s supervised release. Two of the fictional cases involved cocaine distributors and the third a tax evador.

Schwartz has apologized for failing to check the citations before including them in the motion, but identified Cohen as the source of the citations.

Cohen has admitted he used Google Bard to conduct research, believing it to be a “a super‑charged search engine” rather than a generative AI tool. He believed the citations to be real, as did Cohen, although neither of them checked the citations.

Cohen said, “[a]s a non-lawyer, I have not kept up with emerging trends (and related risks) in legal technology and did not realize that Google Bard was a generative text service that, like Chat-GPT, could show citations and descriptions that looked real but actually were not.” Cohen was disbarred five years ago.

Google Bard was released in 2023 and is Google’s generative AI tool intended to compete with Chat-GPT, which Microsoft has integrated into its Bing search engine. 

The incident was the second in 2023 in the same District Court in which attorneys included fake citations created by generative AI.

It remains to be seen what sanction the Court imposes for the inclusion of the fake cases.

David’s Dicta: As demonstrated in this case, generative AI has notable limitations. First, the data set may be closed as of a particular date, usually a few years before the release of the final code in the current version such that intervening information, including subsequent authority, may be missing. Second, generative AI is prone to occasional hallucinations. It may provide you with information to please you, even if the information is manufactured. In one infamous incident, confronted over citations a judge could not locate, an attorney stepped out of the courtroom and asked the AI if the cases it cited were real. The AI reported that they were, when they did not exist. This compunded the attorney’s problems when he reported they were real. The takeaway here is to check the citations, read the cases yourself, and then Shepardize them, i.e. check subsequent authority to see if they were overturned on appeal or subsequently criticized. Remember that an attorney has an obligation to bring controlling authority before the Court, even if it does not favor a client’s position, as intentionally overlooking the authority would mislead the Court. Relying on false citations is arguably a greater offense.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *