Michael Cohen Used Fake Cases Cited by A.I. to Seek an End to Court Supervision – The New York Times

Michael D. Cohen, the onetime fixer for former President Donald J. Trump, mistakenly gave his lawyer bogus legal citations concocted by the artificial intelligence program Google Bard, he said in court papers unsealed on Friday.

The fictitious citations were used by the lawyer in a motion submitted to a federal judge, Jesse M. Furman. Mr. Cohen, who pleaded guilty in 2018 to campaign finance violations and served time in prison, had asked the judge for an early end to the courts supervision of his case now that he is out of prison and has complied with the conditions of his release.

The ensuing chain of misunderstandings and mistakes ended with Mr. Cohen asking the judge to exercise discretion and mercy.

In a sworn declaration made public on Friday, Mr. Cohen explained that he had not kept up with emerging trends (and related risks) in legal technology and did not realize that Google Bard was a generative text service that, like ChatGPT, could show citations and descriptions that looked real but actually were not.

He also said he had not realized that the lawyer filing the motion on his behalf, David M. Schwartz, would drop the cases into his submission wholesale without even confirming that they existed.

The episode could have implications for a Manhattan criminal case against Mr. Trump in which Mr. Cohen is expected to be the star witness. The former presidents lawyers have long attacked Mr. Cohen as a serial fabulist; now, they say they have a brand-new example.

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Michael Cohen Used Fake Cases Cited by A.I. to Seek an End to Court Supervision - The New York Times