A Federal Judge's Clerk Asked AI for a Draft. The Draft Made Up Its Own Facts.
Ourtake
Hallucinated case law reached a federal courtroom, and the appeals court noticed before anyone else did.
What happened
A law clerk used AI to draft a federal temporary restraining order in Mississippi, and the order contained factual assertions, parties, declarations and quotations not in the record or the law. An appeals panel led by Judge Jerry Smith of the 5th Circuit overturned the preliminary injunction against a Mississippi DEI law on Oct. 22, citing hallucinated content, and ordered reassignment on remand.