Google has promoted its AI legal tool amid ongoing concerns of fabricated court citations. According to Halimah DeLaine Prado, Google’s general counsel, AI’s role in the legal space is a “complement, not a replacement.”
The practice of law will always fundamentally rise and fall on the exercise of good judgment,” DeLaine Prado told Axios, adding, “You can now access that information in minutes, not days, which gives you more time to think.”
A website created by legal researcher Damien Charlotin details what are called “AI hallucinations,” or generated content that is not true. His website has identified 2,035 cases of AI hallucinations specifically within legal decisions.
Last year, two federal judges admitted that their staff used artificial intelligence to generate court orders containing errors. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-IA) released responses from U.S. Southern District of Mississippi Judge Henry T. Wingate and U.S. District of New Jersey Judge Julien Xavier Neals regarding their use of AI to draft what Grassley’s office described as “error-ridden orders” that misquoted the law, referenced individuals uninvolved in the case, and generated fake quotes.
Neals said the decision was “released in error – human error – and withdrawn as soon as it was brought to the attention of my chambers, swiftly avoiding any irreparable harm to litigants or counsel.”
Similarly, Wingate said the “root cause of the errors identified in Defendant’s unopposed motion to clarify/correct was a lapse in human oversight, specifically the posting of a draft opinion instead of a final one and the failure to put the draft opinion through the final review process.”
