A judge in Colombia admitted that he used the ChatGPT to decide whether an autistic child's insurance should cover all of the costs of his medical treatment. He used precedent from previous rulings to support his decision.
Juan Manuel Padilla, a judge in the Caribbean city of Cartagena, concluded that the entirety of child's medical expenses and transport costs should be paid by his medical plan, as his parents could not afford them.
While the judgment itself did not cause much fuss, the inclusion of Padilla's conversations with ChatGPT in the ruling has been more contentious.
Among Padilla's inquiries with the chatbot, the legal documents show that Padilla asked ChatGPT the precise legal matter at hand: Is an autistic minor exonerated from paying fees for their therapies? The response of the ChatGPT followed the judge's decision: Yes, this is correct. Minors diagnosed with autism are exempt from paying fees for their therapies, according to the regulations in Colombia. The case has raised a discussion about the use of AI in law and has been criticised by some of Padilla's peers.
ChatGPT scours text over the internet to generate informed responses but has been shown to provide different answers to the same question. It also fabricates information on occasion to make inventive and compelling lies.
The nascent platform has caused alarm in recent weeks, including in schools where teachers fear OpenAI's platform could be used by students for plagiarism.
Padilla defended his use of the technology, saying it could make Colombia's bloated legal system more efficient. The judge used precedent from previous rulings to support his decision.
Padilla told Blu Radio on Tuesday that ChatGPT could be useful in helping with the drafting of texts but not with the aim of replacing judges.
Padilla said that we do not stop being judges, thinking beings by asking questions to the application. The judge argued that ChatGPT performs services previously provided by a secretary in an organized, simple and structured way that could improve response times in the justice system.
Professor Juan David Gutierrez of Rosario University expressed incredulity at the judge's admission.
He called for digital literacy training for judges.
In 2022, Colombia approved a law that suggests public lawyers should use technologies where possible to make their work more efficient.
Octavio Tejeiro, a judge in Colombia's supreme court, said AI caused moral panic in law because people feared robots would replace judges, but he predicted the tool would soon become accepted and commonplace.
The justice system should make the most of technology as a tool but always be followed by ethics and taking into account that the administrator of justice is ultimately a human being, Tejeiro said. It must be seen as an instrument that serves the judge to improve his judgment. We can't allow the tool to become more important than the person. Tejeiro told the Guardian he had not used ChatGPT but would consider using it in future.
The chatbot was more apprehensive about its new role in the justice system.
Judges shouldn't use ChatGPT when ruling on legal cases. It is not a substitute for the knowledge, expertise and judgment of a human judge, as it responded to a question from the Guardian.
The bot said that Journalists should be cautious when using quotes generated by ChatGPT in their articles.