Confusion ensued as no one else could find the cited cases. Castel issued an order on April 11 saying that LoDuca “shall file an affidavit annexing copies of the following cases cited in his submission to the court,” and that “failure to comply will result in dismissal of this action.”
The plaintiff’s lawyer continued to insist that the cases were real. LoDuca filed an affidavit on April 25 in which he swore to the authenticity of the fake cases, including one—Shaboon v. Egyptair—that he claimed was “an unpublished opinion.” One day after the filing, Avianca’s legal team wrote that “the authenticity of many of these cases is questionable.” Since the cases don’t exist, the defendant’s lawyers were unable to find them using tools such as Westlaw, PACER, and Lexis Courtlink.
LoDuca eventually came clean that they’d actually had a different lawyer, who was not admitted in the district the case is in, do the legwork in writing the filings.
Lawyer Steven Schwartz of the firm Levidow, Levidow, & Oberman “greatly regrets having utilized generative artificial intelligence to supplement the legal research performed herein and will never do so in the future without absolute verification of its authenticity,” Schwartz wrote in an affidavit on May 24 regarding the bogus citations previously submitted in US District Court for the Southern District of New York.
How was Schwartz taken in by the fake cases? Because when they asked ChatGPT if the cases were real, ChatGPT told them they were! It’s clearly all ChatGPT’s fault, as the idiotlawyer explained while submitting screenshots of the chat:
First off, both lawyers (smartly) lawyered up with lawyers from outside their own firm. Second, on Wednesday, they filed their required response to Judge Kevin Castel’s order to show cause, which was effectively the two lawyers throwing themselves on the mercy of the court. The shortest summary of the 29 page document is “we may be ignorant and stupid, but we’re not malicious — and sanctions should only be put on malicious lawyers” And also “we’re super duper sorry, and everyone’s mocking that, so isn’t that punishment enough?”
However, even within that filing there were some issues. When filing a legal brief, it normally includes a “Table of Authorities” which includes citations to every other case named in the document.
But, because the response includes a discussion of ChatGPT providing that cite (and others) those fake cases are mentioned in the brief… meaning whoever put together the Table of Authorities included the fake cases that were mentioned. Really.
First, the judge went after LoDuca, whose signature was on the docs, but who has now admitted that he was just signing everything that Schwartz put in front of him without really reviewing it (this was because LoDuca is admitted to the federal courts in the federal district, while Schwartz is not).
Already, this is questionable enough, in that LoDuca was signing stuff without really checking it over, but also the judge got him to admit that he had lied to the court regarding a vacation when asking for an extension of time (Schwartz was the one who was actually going on vacation). From Inner City Press’s transcription:
Judge Castel: Do you recall writing to me you were going on vacation? And the Court giving you until April 25? LoDuca:Yes. Judge Castel:Was it true you were going on vacation? LoDuca: No, judge.
There’s actually a way to prompt ChatGPT to check the veracity and it will run it through Wolfram Alpha. I just saw this recently on a video. Seems like a whole bunch of people need to do just the barest of research on how to use ChatGPT before getting let loose on it.
He [G.E. Moore] believed global skepticism is more or less incoherent because in face we can distinguish easily between dreams and reality, optical illusions and reality, etc.
But we can’t easily do that. I know I have trouble. I always thought that was part of the human condition. Was he just bullshitting?
Unfortunately, the one guy’s 19 year old son was on board with him. If it were just a bunch of rich dudes, I’d been pretty comfortable with the choices they made. One story said the son was really scared but went because it was Father’s Day.
Honestly, what kind of society do we live in that causes a 19 year old boy-man to do something extremely dangerous just because of a fuckin’ Hallmark holiday?
Does loving one’s parent have anything to do with self-preservation? And I also realize that a 19-y.o. brain isn’t developed to the point of making the best decisions either.
I just think it’s a shitty situation that could’ve been avoided, and glorifying it is even shittier. Nothing noble was done. There was no positive outcome whatsoever. And I doubt that any lesson was truly learned.
they didn’t know it was going to be the last thing they did. thoughts of self-preservation didn’t figure into it in the moment, any more that boarding an airplane makes you overwhelmingly fear for your own self-preservation. could it have been avoided? sure, in hindsight. the positive outcome is that this sort of tourism will be slowed or stopped for awhile, and there will definitely be more regulation and oversight coming, saving lives in the future.
