Seoul, Nov 2 (IANS) Eight in 10 South Korean judges have experienced court cases in which false or non-existent legal precedents generated by artificial intelligence (AI) were cited, a recent survey by the Supreme Court showed.
The top court on Monday published the outcome of the survey conducted on 360 judges from October 6-16 as it sought to examine increasingly worrisome cases of “AI hallucination” — a term referring to a situation where AI models present false information as if it were true.
In the survey, about 80 per cent of the judges in charge of civil, family and administrative cases said that they had experienced cases in which non-existent or false precedents were cited.
Of those, 196 judges, or 80.7 per cent, said they had seen the citations of non-existent legal precedents in court cases, while 159 judges, or 65.4 per cent, said they had encountered cases involving the citations of false precedents.
The survey also showed that 41 judges, or 16.9 per cent, encountered cases in which false or non-existent laws and regulations were cited, while 10 judges, or 4.1 per cent, said they have seen citations of false or non-existent theses and publications.
A total of 164 judges said they themselves have cited false precedents, while 136, or 57.6 per cent, said that lawyers representing parties in court had cited false precedents or other information.
Nearly 92 per cent of respondents said there need to be institutional measures to address the citations of AI-generated fake precedents.
Those measures include setting up legal grounds for imposing fines, establishing verification requirements and devising disciplinary measures against lawyers repeatedly citing false information.
An official at the National Court Administration pointed out that citing AI-generated false or non-existent legal precedents may lead to a delay in court proceedings, underscoring a need to craft effective countermeasures based on the survey results.
–IANS
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