In early 2023, a lawyer in New York submitted a legal brief to the court that cited six relevant cases as precedent. There was just one problem: none of those c

In early 2023, a lawyer in New York submitted a legal brief to the court that cited six relevant cases as precedent. There was just one problem: none of those cases existed. The lawyer had used ChatGPT to research case law, and ChatGPT had invented cases that sounded completely real - complete with plausible case names, citations, and summaries - but were entirely fabricated. This is a well-known example of a ChatGPT hallucination. And it's one of the most important things to understand about modern AI tools.