Judge Kevin Castel on Thursday issued an opinion and order on sanctions that found Peter LoDuca, Steven A. Schwartz, and the law firm of Levidow, Levidow & Oberman P.C. had “abandoned their responsibilities when they submitted non-existent judicial opinions with fake quotes and citations created by the artificial intelligence tool ChatGPT, then continued to stand by the fake opinions after judicial orders called their existence into question.”
To punish the attorneys, the judge directed each to pay a $5,000 fine to the court, to notify their client, and to notify each real judge falsely identified as the author of the cited fake cases.
Hm… I think if they fucked up and were negligent, this is a reasonable slap on the wrist judgement. If they fucked up, and then were knowledgeable in a malicious cover-up of their fuck up, this seems like a light punishment. The evidence seems to weigh towards the second, but the punishment gives them the benefit of the doubt on that.