It may not be Ultron or Skynet as some initially worried, but the latest wave of artificial intelligence technology has not turned out to be a perfect tool, either. In fact, a case out of Wood County Circuit Court reminds us there are big reasons NOT to rely on the technology.

A petition seeking an injunction was denied by Circuit Judge J.D. Beane in part because the filing contained inaccurate citations generated by AI. He believed that because it was “riddled” with errors, it was unlikely to succeed.

“The Court is left with the conclusion that this complaint was drafted, perhaps entirely, with the assistance of a large language AI model program, which hallucinated a significant body of caselaw and regurgitated it onto paper,” he said. “The Court cannot grant injunctive relief — an extraordinary remedy — on the basis of a complaint that includes multiple citations to non-existent authority, and several citations to irrelevant authority.”

Among the problems with the filing were cases that could not be found in the record or whose numbers referenced other cases.

However, Beane’s order noted there was no finding the plaintiff “attempted to be intentionally deceptive with this complaint, but (the court) urges caution when making representations in a legal filing.”

To her credit, the plaintiff acknowledged her hurried use of AI produced faulty, irrelevant and non-existent citations. In fact, she called her situation a “cautionary tale.”

” … The judge is right about this – I should have been more careful and double-checked the cites that were given to me,” she said. “Anyone should be careful in using AI, but it’s a new frontier.”

Precisely. There may be helpful uses for this new technology, but humans must not blindly rely on it. In fact, there is good reason to be suspicious of the content it produces.

This “cautionary tale” is an important reminder to all of us not only to tread carefully with the use of AI and ALWAYS fact-check it, as the plaintiff has acknowledged she should have, but to be wary, as Beane was, of what you read or watch and have an eye for signs that something was generated by a computer that was a little too eager to please.