Man Accused Of Using AI To Write His Legal Argument After It Makes Up Other Cases
Lawyers, your jobs appear safe from AI... for now.
Artificial intelligence can do a lot for you these days, but it's not quite ready for the courtroom, as one man in Canada found out the hard way.
According to the National Post, Nosakhare Ohenhen was seen as the passenger in a car involved in a fatal hit-and-run accident in which a pedestrian was hit by a car back in 2022. Following that incident, Ohenhen was accused of allowing the driver of the car to use his vehicle to evade police, and authorities searched his home. There, police found $32,000 in $100 bills at his home, which they seized, saying that they were the proceeds of a crime.
Not true, according to Ohenhen, who claimed that the more than $30,000 (I assume that's Canadian, but it's still a lot of money) came from one heck of a night of winning at the casino.
Ohenhen is facing a handful of charges related to the incident — all of which are pending — and, according to the Ontario Attorney General, he has a pretty lengthy rap sheet, but he wanted his money back and decided to try and get his money back in Ontario’s Superior Court of Justice.
However, it was quickly noted that there was something up about Ohenhen's argument submitted to the court.
A man in Canada had his plan to use AI to help in court, and blew up in his face. (Getty Images)
"Mr. Ohenhen submitted a statement of legal argument to the court in support of his arguments," Justice Lisa Brownstone wrote in her decision. "In those documents, he referred to at least two non-existent or fake precedent court cases, one ostensibly from the Court of Appeal for Ontario and another ostensibly from the British Columbia Court of Appeal. In reviewing his materials after the argument, I tried to access these cases and was unable to find them."
Oh no! He got hosed like a kid using ChatGPT to do a book report on A Tale of Two Cities, so he doesn't have to read the book, only for it to think the two cities are Cleveland and Cincinnati and the main character is named Col. Jefferson Steelflex (I don't know if you've read the book, but none of that is accurate).
So, it looks like lawyers are safe from AI taking their jobs for the time being, and, no, Ohenhen did not get his money back.