AI (Artificial Intelligence) and Family Law
As the video of my paralegals makes clear, AI is amazingly effective at making silly videos that look real. Many of the routine news articles about weather and sports recaps we encounter online are written by AI. In both instances, it is typically not hard to tell that these have been generated by AI. But, as the technology improves it may become increasingly difficult to readily identify fake videos, photographs or writings. This raises particular issues for couples who are going through a divorce.
Here is one thing that I can tell you without hesitation: AI makes for a terrible lawyer!
The first instance where I have seen AI make its way into the divorce world is where a person has decided to represent themselves and file AI generated pleadings. These are almost always a disaster.
AI can scour the internet for content that seems to its programming to be relevant to your inquiry. But, it does not reliably discern from that content things that are just flat out wrong. It is useless at discerning what of that content is relevant to the particular facts of your case, it does not have a clue how to present your case to the particular Judge who is going to hear it, and it will never be able to conduct your trial for you.
What AI will reliably do is make you look like a crazy person when the Judge looks at your file and have him/her rolling their eyes at your filings. AI typically generates excessively long, irrelevant, unnecessary, objectionable and sanctionable pleadings for people. When people come to me after having represented themselves using AI, I invariably have to tell them that the first thing we need to do is get the Judge to understand that you are not a crazy person and that AI has led you wrong up to this point. I understand that not everyone can afford a lawyer, but I assure you that filing AI generated documents is likely not the answer to getting you an outcome that you will be satisfied with.
This caution includes having AI write contracts of any kind, including separation agreements or consent orders. Having AI write such agreements may be even worse than having AI write your Court filings, as you may think that all your issues are completely settled only to later find out when issues arise that the document is not worth the paper it is written on.
Multiple lawyers across the country have been sanctioned, fired and/or disciplined for filing things written by AI, including an Assistant District Attorney for the Eastern District of North Carolina for using AI to draft a legal brief containing fabricated quotes and case citations. If a lawyer will get fired or disbarred for using AI, how well do you think it will represent you?
Here is another thing that I can tell you without hesitation: AI makes for a terrible client!
Your lawyer knows instantly when we receive communications from you that are written by AI. Your typical messages to your lawyer are one, two, maybe three paragraphs written like a human being. Your AI messages to your lawyer are three pages long, have 7 numbered sections and 5 subsections per section. Sending your lawyer a message written by AI will make your lawyer consider whether continuing to represent you is worthwhile. At a minimum though, it will cost you substantial funds for your lawyer to respond to the multitude of irrelevant ideas and inquiries that AI will generate, and it will be hard to place a high priority on setting aside an entire hour to respond to the concerns of ChatGPT vs. the multitude of other matters that we have going on constantly.
There is nothing wrong with using AI/internet to search for information to try best to educate yourself. And there is nothing wrong with reading that information and using it to formulate questions that you think would be useful to ask your lawyer. Just do not copy and paste the AI generated results to your lawyer, and remember the section above about how using the wisdom of AI has served lawyers who have used it in the past.
What if my ex created a fake photo or video of me?
This is a very real concern. Knowingly offering a fake recording, photograph or video of a person to the Court in a divorce proceeding would likely constitute a felony. This is why it is incredibly important for your lawyer to ensure that the rules of evidence are followed in admitting such pieces of evidence. Those rules include the requirement that the recording, photograph or video be authenticated. This essentially means that someone must testify to who made the recording/photo/video, when/how it was made, that it accurately depicts the scene or events that it is being offered to show, how it was stored since then and that it has not been changed or altered in anyway.
When there is no apparent dispute about the authenticity of a recording, photo or video, your lawyer will not necessarily go through this exercise every time in order to conserve valuable Court time which tends to be limited for your case, and to preserve the Judge’s patience at times. But, if there is an issue regarding authenticity, then these rules must be applied through objections when necessary.
First things first, you know what you did and did not do. So be honest with your lawyer about whether the recording, video or photograph is really of you. Claiming that such a document has been fabricated, only to have it proved that it really is you, is almost as bad as faking it begin with. Even if you have not testified that it is a fake, and thereby committed perjury, your lawyer’s resistance to its authenticity will highlight how damaging it is for you when it inevitably is admitted into evidence, and you will have eliminated any credibility you have with the Judge hearing your case.
On the other hand, if your ex has fabricated evidence against you, you and your lawyer should fight it vigorously and if you prove the evidence is fabricated then your ex should suffer the similarly disastrous consequences for having done so.
Metadata is available on your typical smartphone when you use it to take recordings, photos or create videos. This is extremely useful for authentication because it not only shows the date and time you create the digital file, but it may include a map showing your location when you created the file. A quick internet search will provide you with the easy steps to obtaining the metadata for the photos, videos and recordings you think may be useful in your divorce.