Lawyers submitted bogus case law created by ChatGPT. A judge fined them $5,000

A federal judge has imposed $5,000 fines on a group of lawyers after ChatGPT was blamed for their submission of fictitious legal research to support an aviation injury claim. Judge P. Kevin Castel said the lawyers acted in bad faith but credited their apologies in a written ruling Thursday. The lawyers testified earlier this month that they thought references to past cases in a document they submitted to Castel were real. They actually were made up by the artificial intelligence-powered chatbot. Separately, the judge tossed out the aviation claim, saying the statute of limitations had expired.