Judges describe a campaign of firings and interference which threatens the system's independence. On a Thursday morning last month, Patrick O'Brien, a federal immigration judge, walked into his courtroom in downtown San Francisco. He was scheduled for a master-calendar hearing, a roll call, essentially, to get cases ready for trial. O'Brien was wearing a matte-black robe that seemed to absorb the artificial light overhead. He took his seat, scanned the room, and angled himself toward a computer monitor. The court was leanly staffed. There was a judicial clerk but no bailiff or stenographer. Opposite the judge were tables for the prosecution--the Department of Homeland Security--and for the respondent, a succession of immigrants who were applying for asylum. A Spanish interpreter appeared as a faceless box on a big screen. About ten people, all Latino, sat in wooden pews, gripping folders full of esoteric documents.

One of Anthropic's lawyers had asked the company's AI model Claude to create a citation for a legal article, but Claude included the wrong title and author. Anthropic's attorney admitted that the mistake was not caught by anyone reviewing the document. Lastly, and perhaps most concerning, is a case unfolding in Israel. After police arrested an individual on charges of money laundering, Israeli prosecutors submitted a request asking a judge for permission to keep the individual's phone as evidence. But they cited laws that don't exist, prompting the defendant's attorney to accuse them of including AI hallucinations in their request.

People just can't stop using generative AI tools in legal proceedings, despite repeated pushback from frustrated judges. While AI initially appeared in courtrooms through bogus "hallucinated" cases the trend has taken a turn--driven by increasingly sophisticated AI video and audio tools. In some instances, AI is even being used to seemingly bring victims back from the dead. This week, a crime victim's family presented a brief video in an Arizona courtroom depicting an AI version of 37-year-old Chris Pelkey. Pelkey was shot and killed in 2021 in a road rage incident. Now, four years later, the AI-generated "clone" appeared to address his alleged killer in court.

Center for AI Safety Director Dan Hendrycks explains concerns about how the rapid growth of artificial intelligence could impact society. Judges are likely to take concerns over artificial intelligence into their own hands and create their own rules for the tech in courtrooms, experts say. U.S. District Judge Brantley Starr of the Northern District of Texas may have been a pioneer last week when he required lawyers who appear in his courtroom to certify they did not use artificial intelligence programs, such as ChatGPT, to draft their filings without a human checking for accuracy. "We're at least putting lawyers on notice, who might not otherwise be on notice, that they can't just trust those databases," Starr, a Trump appointed judge, told Reuters. "They've got to actually verify it themselves through a traditional database."

DoNotPay says it is pivoting away from plans to bring AI to a courtroom. DoNotPay, which bills itself as "the world's first robot lawyer," said last month that it planned to take on two speeding ticket cases in court in February, with its AI instructing the defendants how to respond to their assigned judges. The startup said it would cover any fines and the defendants will be compensated for taking part in the experiment. But CEO and founder Joshua Browder announced late last month that it would be "postponing" those plans, citing "threats from State Bar prosecutors." "Ultimately, it seemed like a distraction from using chatGPT technology to help with consumer rights issues," Browder said in an emailed statement. "We have decided to focus on consumer rights products, where we are very successful.

Emerging technologies could have profound effects on legal processes, but are the ready for the courtroom?

In a new study, University of Minnesota law professors used ChatGPT AI chatbot to answer graduate exams at four courses in their school. The AI passed all four, but with an average grade of C . The University of Minnesota group noted ChatGPT was good at addressing "basic legal rules" and summaries, but it floundered when trying to pinpoint issues relevant in a case. When faced with business management questions in a different study, the generator was "amazing" with simple operations management and process analysis questions, but it couldn't handle advanced process questions. It even made mistakes with sixth-grade-level math – something other AI authors have struggled with.

A "robot" lawyer powered by artificial intelligence was set to be the first of its kind to help a defendant fight a traffic ticket in court next month. But the experiment has been scrapped after "State Bar prosecutors" threatened the man behind the company that created the chatbot with prison time. Joshua Browder, CEO of DoNotPay, on Wednesday tweeted that his company "is postponing our court case and sticking to consumer rights." Bad news: after receiving threats from State Bar prosecutors, it seems likely they will put me in jail for 6 months if I follow through with bringing a robot lawyer into a physical courtroom. Browder also said he will not be sending the company's robot lawyer to court.

Joshua Browder, the CEO of New York startup DoNotPay, recently announced that his company's AI will represent a defendant fighting a traffic ticket in the courtroom on February 22nd. "[H]istory will be made," Browder wrote in his tweet. "DoNotPay A.I will whisper in someone's ear exactly what to say. We will release the results and share more after it happens," he added. We may never know how the "robot lawyer" will fare in court, though, because a few days later, Browder announced that DoNotPay is postponing its court case after he received threats of jail time from state bar prosecutors if he goes through with his plan.

A "robot" lawyer powered by artificial intelligence will be the first of its kind to help a defendant fight a traffic ticket in court next month. Joshua Browder, CEO of DoNotPay, said the company's AI-creation runs on a smartphone, listens to court arguments and formulates responses for the defendant. The AI lawyer tells the defendant what to say in real-time, through headphones. The robot lawyer will take its first case on February 22, Browder announced on Twitter last week. "On February 22nd at 1.30PM, history will be made. For the first time ever, a robot will represent someone in a US courtroom. DoNotPay A.I will whisper in someone's ear exactly what to say. We will release the results and share more after it happens. He did not disclose the name of the client or the court. On February 22nd at 1.30PM, history will be made. For the first time ever, a robot will represent someone in a US courtroom. DoNotPay A.I will whisper in someone's ear exactly what to say. We will release the results and share more after it happens. The artificial intelligence firm has already used AI-generated form letters and chatbots to help people secure refunds for in-flight Wifi that didn't work, as well as to lower bills and dispute parking tickets, among other issues, according to Browder. All told the company has relied on these AI templates to win more than 2 million customer service disputes and court cases on behalf of individuals against institutions and organizations, he added. It has raised $27.7 million from tech-focused venture capital firms, including Andreessen Horowitz and Crew Capital. "In the past year, AI tech has really developed and allowed us to go back and forth in real time with corporations and governments," he told CBS MoneyWatch of recent advances. "We spoke live [with companies and customer service reps] to lower bills with companies; and what we're doing next month is try to use the tech in a courtroom for the first time." If the robot lawyer loses the case, DoNotPay will cover any fines, Browder said. Some courts allow defendants to wear hearing aids, some versions of which are bluetooth-enabled. That's how Browder determined that DoNotPay's technology can legally be used in this case. Some states require that all parties consent to be recorded, which rules out the possibility of a robot lawyer entering many courtrooms. Of the 300 cases DoNotPay considered for a trial of its robot lawyer, only two were feasible. "It's within the letter of the law, but I don't think anyone could ever imagine this would happen," Browder said. "It's not in the spirit of law, but we're trying to push things forward and a lot of people can't afford legal help.