CHARLOTTE, N.C. (QUEEN CITY NEWS) — Federal judges in the Western District of North Carolina, including Charlotte, have issued an order limiting the use of artificial intelligence platforms in filing legal briefs and memorandums.
The order comes after several high-profile cases nationwide were found to have had assistance from platforms such as ChatGPT, which often cited bogus laws or had numerous errors.
“Generative artificial intelligence caught us all by surprise,” said former federal judge Paul W. Grimm. “When it came in 2023, there was this ‘whoa’ factor.”
Grimm now serves as a professor at Duke Law School and has specialized in technology in law and noted that the order, filed in June 2024 by the federal judges over the Western District of North Carolina may need to be updated as time goes on.
The order, as it stands, bars the use of ChatGPT and other AI platforms for legal filings, except for those associated with search engines specializing in the legal field and case law.
Additionally, lawyers and anyone else filing a brief or memorandum with the court will have to certify that artificial intelligence was not used (outside of the aforementioned law-related search engines), and must certify every fact and citation has been checked.
The consequence for not following those directives could mean sanctions against those who filed the legal brief or memorandum, or a case being thrown out.
Grimm noted that this could eventually be seen on the state level. Several other states are considering or no longer allowing the use of AI-generated court filings.
“Some people have bypassed their ‘check it’, and they’ve been proven wrong to their peril,” said Grimm.
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