Michael Cohen used AI program to give his lawyer fake legal cases: court filing

29 December 2023

After being released from federal prison, Michael D. Cohen — Donald Trump's former personal attorney and fixer — asked to have his probation time reduced. Cohen searched for legal precedents in order to make his arguments.

But the New York Times and Forbes are reporting that according to court papers unsealed on Friday, December 29, Cohen said he mistakenly gave his attorney fake "cases" generated by the artificial intelligence program Google Bard.

Times reporter Benjamin Weiser explains, "The fictitious citations were then used in a motion provided to a Manhattan federal judge. Mr. Cohen, who pleaded guilty in 2018 to campaign finance violations and served time in prison, had asked for an early end to court supervision of his case now that he was out of prison and had complied with the conditions of his release."

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In the unsealed court papers, Cohen is quoted as saying, in a sworn declaration, that he had not kept up with "emerging trends" 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."

The court papers also quote Cohen as saying that he did not realize his attorney, David M. Schwartz, "would drop the cases into his submission wholesale without even confirming that they existed."

Weiser notes that this "revelation" about Cohen "could have serious implications" for Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg Jr.'s criminal case against Trump, as Cohen "is expected to serve as the star witness."

Cohen was once a top ally of Trump but has become a scathing critic. During an appearance on ITV in the U.K. in November, Cohen said he would "fear for my life" if Trump won the 2024 presidential election and would seek political asylum in another country.

Read the full New York Times report at this link (subscription required)

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