I refer to the article “Punjab and Haryana High Court uses ChatGPT in bail order” which indicates that Justie Anoop Chitkara used ChatGPT while deciding a bail case.
The Judge appears to have added a disclaimer that
“Any reference to ChatGPT and any observation made hereinabove is neither an expression of opinion on the merits of the case nor shall the trial Court advert to these comments. This reference is only intended to present a broader picture on bail jurisprudence, where cruelty is a factor,“.
The use of ChatGPT and making a reference to it in the judgement reflects how the Courts are mis-informed about the natural Language Models like ChatGPT which are prone to bias and hallucination. Also ChatGPT was trained mostly on US data before 2021 and is expected to give wrong answers. It may be good for all of us to use to help our children do their homework but certainly not for other serious work. It is just another tool like the Google Search and needs to be completely supervised by a human being who takes responsibility.
If Courts start referring to ChatGPT, tomorrow petitioners will start quoting ChatGPT as evidence and some judges may be inclined to consider ChatGPT output as gospel truth.
I wish the CJI puts an immediate stop to such use of ChatGPT in arriving at judgements even for reference. The judge is free to use it privately if he wants but should not quote it as one of his aides. This will make ChatGPT output as “Orbiter Dicta” over a time.
Naavi
