this post was submitted on 03 Mar 2025
498 points (99.2% liked)

Technology

63614 readers
4865 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.


Our Rules


  1. Follow the lemmy.world rules.
  2. Only tech related content.
  3. Be excellent to each other!
  4. Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
  5. Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
  6. Politics threads may be removed.
  7. No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
  8. Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
  9. Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
  10. Accounts 7 days and younger will have their posts automatically removed.

Approved Bots


founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

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.

top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] [email protected] 4 points 37 minutes ago

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.

[–] [email protected] 58 points 5 hours ago (2 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 hours ago

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.

[–] [email protected] 28 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

Eh, they should file a complaint the first time, and the state bar can decide what to do about it.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 hours ago (2 children)

"We have investigated ourselves and found nothing wrong"

[–] [email protected] 11 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

The bar might get pretty ruthless for fake case citations.

[–] sik0fewl 3 points 2 hours ago

I would hope that gross negligence and incompetence with come with severe consequences.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 hours ago

The state bar is not the state cops.

[–] [email protected] 27 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 7 points 3 hours ago

So long as your own lawyer isn't doing the same, of course :)

[–] [email protected] 135 points 8 hours ago (2 children)

Haven't people already been disbarred over this? Turning in unvetted AI slop should get you fired from any job.

[–] corsicanguppy 4 points 3 hours ago

Immediately there should be a contempt charge for disrespecting the Court.

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] [email protected] 106 points 8 hours ago (35 children)

“Mr. Ramirez explained that he had used AI before to assist with legal matters, such as drafting agreements, and did not know that AI was capable of generating fictitious cases and citations,” Judge Dinsmore wrote in court documents filed last week.

Jesus Christ, y'all. It's like Boomers trying to figure out the internet all over again. Just because AI (probably) can't lie doesn't mean it can't be earnestly wrong. It's not some magical fact machine; it's fancy predictive text.

It will be a truly scary time if people like Ramirez become judges one day and have forgotten how or why it's important to check people's sources yourself, robot or not.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 4 hours ago

AI, specifically Laege language Models, do not “lie” or tell “the truth”. They are statistical models and work out, based on the prompt you feed them, what a reasonable sounding response would be.

This is why they’re uncreative and they “hallucinate”. It’s not thinking about your question and answering it, it’s calculating what words will placate you, using a calculation that runs on a computer the size of AWS.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 5 hours ago (2 children)
[–] [email protected] 7 points 4 hours ago (10 children)

a lie is a statement that the speaker knows to be wrong. wouldnt claiming that AIs can lie imply cognition on their part?

[–] [email protected] 8 points 4 hours ago (3 children)

I've had this lengthy discussion before. Some people define a lie as an untrue statement, while others additionally require intent to deceive.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 minutes ago* (last edited 10 minutes ago)

You can specifically tell an ai to lie and deceive though, and it will…

This was just in the news today.. although the headline says that the ai become psychopathic, they just told the ai to be immoral or something

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 hours ago

The latter is the actual definition. Some people not knowing what words mean isnt an argument

[–] [email protected] 7 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

I would fall into the latter category. Lots of people are earnestly wrong without being liars.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 hours ago

Me, too. But it also means when some people say "that's a lie" they're not accusing you of anything, just remarking you're wrong. And that can lead to misunderstandings.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 hours ago

AI is just stringing words together that are statistically likely to appear near each other. It's a giant complex statistical model but it has no awareness of truth or lying

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

AIs can generate false statements. It doesn't require a set of beliefs, it merely requires a set of input.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 hours ago* (last edited 2 hours ago)

A false statement would be me saying that the color of a light that I cannot see and have never seen that is currently red is actually green without knowing. I am just as easily probably right as I am probably wrong, statistics are involved.

A lie would be me knowing that the color of a light that I am currently looking at is currently red and saying that it is actually green. No statistics, I've done this intentionally and the only outcome of my decision to act was that I spoke a falsehood.

AIs can generate false statements, yes, but they are not capable of lying. Lying requires cognition, which LLMs are, by their own admission and by the admission of the companies developing them, at the very least not currently capable of, and personally I believe that it's likely that LLMs never will be.

load more comments (7 replies)
[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 hours ago

Yeah lol, and it's trivial to show

load more comments (33 replies)
load more comments
view more: next ›