John Hinderaker:
Lawyers have gotten into trouble for using artificial intelligence to write briefs. AI programs have fabricated cases that don’t exist, and made up quotations from those cases. That is scandalous; for judges to do the same thing is even worse. District court judges have clerks who often write first drafts of opinions. At a minimum, the judge reviews, edits, approves and signs them. Here, no one in the judge’s office could bestir himself to do legal research and write an opinion—i.e., to do his job—relying instead on an artificial intelligence program. And the judge either used the AI program himself, or was too lazy even to check the opinion for accuracy before he signed and filed it.
Impeachment proceedings should be brought against these judges, in which they can be required to explain what happened—although, to be fair, what happened seems obvious. If they relied on AI programs to write opinions on cases before them, they should be removed from office. The federal judiciary is already under a cloud because of the political campaign that a number of district court judges have mounted against the Trump administration. Confidence in the federal bench is at a low ebb, and these scandals can only make matters worse. Congress should step in, and the Supreme Court should ban the use of artificial intelligence in deciding cases and drafting opinions in the federal courts.
Does John Roberts support removing from office federal judges who rely on AI to write opinions?
# posted by Ranger @ 2:59 PM
