Chilean Lawyer Suspended for Using AI-Generated Fake Sources

Chile's Supreme Court has suspended a lawyer for one month and imposed a significant fine after discovering she used artificial intelligence to create non-existent legal citations in a filing. The lawyer also faces a penalty of 5 UTM (Unidades de Fomento), a monetary unit used in Chile, which amounts to over 357,000 pesos.

The issue came to light when opposing counsel questioned the validity of certain references used to support the legal arguments. Specifically, citations purportedly from academics Juan Andrés Orrego Acuña and Jean Pierre Matus were found to be fabricated, originating not from real publications but from AI-generated content.

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The conduct demonstrated a lack of professionalism incompatible with the standards required of those who practice before the courts of justice.

In her defense, the lawyer claimed that errors in identifying or transcribing sources may have occurred during the document's preparation, denying any intent to deceive the court or misrepresent the academics' views. However, the Supreme Court rejected this explanation, deeming her conduct unprofessional and incompatible with the standards required of legal practitioners.

The court emphasized that procedural good faith mandates the verification of all presented information, a duty the lawyer failed to uphold. The ruling serves as a stark reminder of the ethical responsibilities lawyers hold when presenting information to the judiciary, particularly in the age of advanced AI tools.

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Procedural good faith obliges the verification of the authenticity of the information presented, a duty that, in the Court's judgment, was not fulfilled in this case.