US judge orders lawyers to certify they didn't use AI to draft their legal filings

In a first for federal courts, US District Judge Brantley Starr of the Northern District of Texas has issued a requirement for lawyers in his court to certify that their filings have not been drafted using AI without a human checking their accuracy. Starr warned lawyers that AI tools are capable of creating false cases and threatened sanctions if they rely on AI-generated information without verifying it first. The use of generative AI tools like ChatGPT is “incredibly powerful” but prone to creating hallucinations and bias, according to the notice about the requirement on Starr's court's website. Other databases for legal research cannot be relied on, said law professor Eugene Volokh, who pointed out that this is a way of reminding lawyers that they can't assume that AI-generated content is reliable.