An Avatar of AI tried to discuss a case in a New York court. The judges did not

By Larry Neumeister

NEW YORK (AP) – It only took the judges for a few seconds on a New York Court of Appeal to realize that the man addressed to them from a video screen – a person about to present an argument in a trial – not only had no right diploma, but that there was not at all.

The last bizarre chapter of the clumsy arrival of artificial intelligence in the legal world took place on March 26 under the stained glass dome of the first judicial department of the judicial division of the Supreme Court of the State of New York, where a panel of judges was to hear Jerome Dewald, an applicant in a job dispute.

“The appellant submitted a video for his argument,” said judge Sallie Manzanet-Daniels. “Ok. We will hear this video now.”

On the video screen appeared a smiling man with a young appearance with a carved hairstyle, a buttoned shirt and a sweater.

“May he please court,” the man started. “I come here today a humble pro SE before a panel of five distinguished judges.”

“OK, wait,” said Manzanet-Daniels. “Is this lawyer for the case?”

“I generated this. It is not a real person,” replied Dewald.

It was, in fact, an avatar generated by artificial intelligence. The judge was not satisfied.

“It would have been nice to know that when you made your request. You did not tell me that Monsieur,” said Manzanet-Daniels before shouting through the room to make the video closed.

“I do not appreciate being misleading,” she said before letting Dewald continue with his argument.

Dewald then wrote apologies to the court, saying that he had had no prejudice. He had no lawyer representing him in the trial, he was therefore to present his legal arguments himself. And he thought that the avatar would be able to deliver the presentation without its own usual, stumbling and stumbling mantion on words.

In an interview with the Associated Press, Dewald said that he had asked the court for authorization to play a pre -recorded video, then used a product created by a technological company in San Francisco to create Avatar. Originally, he tried to generate a digital replica that looked like him, but he could not accomplish this before the audience.

“The court was really upset about it,” said Dewald. “They chewed me a lot.”

Even real lawyers were in trouble when their use of artificial intelligence went wrong.

In June 2023, two lawyers and a law firm were each was sentenced to a fine of $ 5,000 per federal judge in New York after using an AI tool for carrying out legal research and, consequently, citing fictitious legal affairs formed by the Chatbot. The company involved said it had made a “good faith error” by not understanding that artificial intelligence could invent things.

Later that year, more fictitious court decisions invented by AI were cited in legal documents deposited by lawyers for Michael Cohen, a former personal lawyer for President Donald Trump. Cohen took the blame, saying he did not realize that the Google tool he used for legal research was also capable of so-called Hallucinations of the AI.

These are errors, but the Supreme Arizona Court last month intentionally began to use two avatars generated by AI, similar to that that Dewald used in New York, to summarize court decisions for the public.

On the court website, the avatars – which go by “Daniel” and “Victoria” – say they are there “to share their news”.

Daniel Shin, auxiliary professor and deputy research director at the Center for Legal and Court Technology at the William & Mary Law School, said that he was not surprised to learn the introduction by Dewald from a false person to argue a case of appeal in a court in New York.

“From my point of view, it was inevitable,” he said.

He said it was unlikely that a lawyer will do such a thing because of the tradition and the rules of the court and because it could be canceled. But he said that people who appear without a lawyer and who are asking for authorization to address the court are generally not instructions on the risks of using a video produced synthetically to present their case.

Dewald said he is trying to follow the technology, after recently listened to a webinar sponsored by the American Bar Association which discussed the use of AI in the legal world.

As for the case of Dewald, he was still pending before the court of appeal on Thursday.

Originally published: April 4, 2025 at 2:02 p.m.