Florida appeals court refers lawyer for possible discipline over 'AI slop'
Artificial Intelligence
A Florida appeals court has reported a lawyer to the Florida Bar, which may decide whether to discipline her. The court said her legal documents contained what it called “AI slop,” meaning poor-quality material that may have been made using artificial intelligence.
In September, Florida’s Fourth District Court of Appeal said it suspected that lawyer Jaclyn Soroka had submitted documents in a divorce case that included material created by artificial intelligence (AI).
At the time, the court said Soroka’s legal documents were too long, hard to follow and sometimes made no sense. The judges said the documents misused the legal process in several ways, including making complicated, false arguments and claims that had no good legal basis.
In an order issued Wednesday, Florida’s Fourth District Court of Appeal rejected Soroka’s reasons for why she should not be punished for submitting legal documents with arguments that had no serious legal basis. The court said her response “misses the point,” meaning it did not address the main problem.
The court said Soroka’s response did not deny using AI. Instead, the judges said, she avoided the question and tried to defend the arguments the court had already criticized in its earlier decision.
Soroka has said she did not use AI to write her legal documents. In her response to the court, she said, “my citations are real, my cases exist and my language is confident because the record supports it.” In other words, she said the legal sources she mentioned were real, the court cases she referred to existed, and she wrote with confidence because the evidence supported her arguments. After checking about 237 citations again, Soroka said she found only two mistakes made by a person, which she blamed on not having enough time.
Reuters has more reporting on the case.