A judge in Colombia has caused alarm in the legal world by revealing that he was using ChatGPT, an artificial intelligence website, to help him decide a case involving an autistic child.
Judge Juan Manuel Padilla Garcia, chairman of a tribunal in the Caribbean city of Cartagena, announced that he used the system in his January 30 ruling.
He was asked to decide whether an insurance company could refuse to pay for doctor’s appointments, therapy and transportation fees for an autistic boy named Salvador given his parents’ limited income.
Padilla – who ruled in favor of the boy and against health insurance – said he asked the bot: “Are autistic minors exempt from paying the fees for their therapies?” among other questions.
It replied: “Yes, that is correct. Under Colombian regulations, minors diagnosed with autism are exempt from paying fees for their therapies.”
Juan Manuel Padilla Garcia, a Cartagena judge, said Jan. 30 he used ChatGPT to research his decision in a case involving an autistic child
Padilla presides over this court in Cartagena – the Primero Laboral, or Labor Court
The judge argued that ChatGPT provides services previously provided by a secretary and does it “in an organized, simple and structured manner” which could improve “response times” in the justice system.
Padilla told Blu Radio that the program helps judges and poses no threat to the legal system.
He said ChatGPT and other such programs could be useful to “make texting easier”.
But, he said, the system “is not intended to replace judges.”
Padilla insisted that “we don’t stop being judges and thinking beings by asking questions about the motion.”
Padilla said he believes other judges would use ChatGPT for research, as he did
ChatGPT is used by millions of people worldwide to generate written responses
ChatGPT uses artificial intelligence and tons of data from the internet to generate answers to questions asked by human users.
Professor Juan David Gutierrez of the University of Rosario was among those who expressed disbelief at the judge’s admission.
Gutierrez, an expert on artificial intelligence regulation and governance, said he asked ChatGPT the same questions and got different answers.
“It is certainly not responsible or ethical to use ChatGPT as the judge intended in the ruling in question,” he wrote on Twitter.
He called for urgent training of judges in “digital literacy”.
Developed by California-based company OpenAI, ChatGPT has taken the world by storm since its launch in November thanks to its ability to write essays, articles, poems, and computer code in just a few seconds.
Critics have expressed fears that it could be used in widespread fraud in schools and universities.
OpenAI has warned that its tool can make mistakes.
But Padilla said he believed other judges would follow suit.
“I suspect that many of my colleagues will follow suit and start constructing their judgments ethically using artificial intelligence,” he said.
The system has such promising capabilities that Microsoft recently announced a new “multi-year, multi-billion dollar investment” to expand the technology.
The company’s support for the artificial intelligence bot comes as 10,000 employees are being laid off and experts warn that AI is making well-paid workers increasingly vulnerable.
Microsoft announced a “multi-year, multi-billion dollar investment” in ChatGPT as the company will lay off nearly five percent of its global workforce this month as the “tech wreck” sweeps Silicon Valley. Pictured: CEO Satya Nadella
“AI is replacing employees,” said Pengcheng Shi, associate dean in the department of computer and information science at the Rochester Institute of Technology.
“I don’t think anyone can prevent that. This is not a crying wolf,” Shi told the New York Post. “The wolf is at the door.”
Since it was released to the public for free by the company OpenAI in November, the chatbot has caused quite a stir online, garnering almost a million users in its first week.
The system is trained on a huge data set and designed to continuously improve, so it can generate answers to almost any question.
Through a simple text prompt, the technician has the ability to solve almost any problem they face, with varying levels of accuracy depending on the task.
The tool passed multiple law exams when professors at the University of Minnesota put it to the test, where it averaged a C+ grade on student papers.
In the essay questions of the legal exam, the bot was able to recite legal regulations and describe cases correctly.
ChatGPT also recently performed better than many people on an MBA exam at Penn’s Elite Wharton School, where it received a respectable B grade.
The professor who conducted the test said the chatbot is capable of doing “professional tasks” like “writing software code and creating legal documents.”
The tool’s capabilities have prompted experts to warn that the ever-improving system could spell doom for numerous industries.
Job fields that could soon be dominated by artificial intelligence include finance, graphic design and education.
One industry at particular risk is technology and software design, an area that has recently been rocked by massive layoffs in Silicon Valley.
Pengcheng Shi, associate dean in the department of computer and information sciences at the Rochester Institute of Technology, warned that AI could cost white-collar jobs
The ChatGPT system is trained on a huge dataset and is designed to continually improve so it can generate answers to almost any question
Microsoft laid off nearly 5 percent of its workforce as 10,000 employees lost their jobs this month while the company also committed billions to ChatGPT’s future.
“We announce the third phase of our long-term partnership with OpenAI through a multi-year, multi-billion dollar investment to accelerate AI breakthroughs and ensure those benefits are shared globally,” the company said in a statement.
The new wave of funding comes after Microsoft already invested $1 billion in Open AI in 2019.
Gil Luria, technology strategist at finance firm DA Davidson, said the move shows the company is looking to AI to fuel growth.
“It’s telling that Microsoft is also announcing a significant investment in OpenAI within a week of announcing fairly sizeable layoffs,” Luria told Yahoo Finance.
“It tells you that they believe that much of the future growth for Microsoft can come from there, and that the technology OpenAI is developing can bring significant improvements to a wide range of products for them.”