Artificial intelligence or natural stupidity?

Who says humans can’t do research as well as artificial intelligence?

Well, a lot of people — but not everyone. For a fascinating example I direct you to a ruling last week by a federal judge in California confronted with a motion that contained citations to nonexistent cases and other cases that didn’t include the stuff they were quoted as saying.

The other side in the case claimed that the motion bore “all the hallmarks of fictitious citations generated by artificial intelligence.”

Seems hard to argue with.

The plaintiff lawyer, who filed the motion, found a way to argue: All the mistakes were hers. She was overworked and what the heck is this artificial intelligence thing anyway?

“Attorney … maintains that ‘the first time (she) became aware of the use of (artificial intelligence) in the legal field was when defendants accused (her) of using it.”

Who needs this AI thing? A human can make stuff up and misquote without any help.

The fictional quotes were all also “inadvertent errors” by the human lawyer. In other words, the lawyer’s defense was that she made up the cases and quotes and somehow that’s better than AI making up the cases and quotes.

For some reason, the judge sanctioned her anyway.

Best part of the 24-page ruling is the first footnote in which the court said it confirmed the lawyer’s registration and bar number “based on a public search of the State Bar of California member directory.”

You can picture the judge having trouble believing an actual human lawyer — not AI — was arguing those things. Picture her reading the arguments and doing a double-take.

No word on whether the ID of the person turning in the motion was checked.

Now imagine the problems we’ll run into when we start seeing robots in court.

If they haven’t been there already.

—— Good interference? ——

Yes, there’s a lot of bad news these days. But sometimes what seems like a bad thing might just be a good thing.

You have to tilt your head and look at news reports the right way.

For example, there was a recent news story that began with this: “Democratic lawmakers warned on Friday that severe staff cuts at an intelligence office that monitors foreign threats to U.S. elections would leave the country vulnerable to interference and subversion from Beijing, as Chinese companies use artificial intelligence as a new weapon in information warfare.”

Sounds bad, right?

Well, maybe it is — but why are Democrats complaining? After all, China isn’t a fan of the current Republican administration. Interference could be a good thing (if you’re not a Republican).

Democrats need to start praising the administration for cutting down on spycraft. Then we’ll either get Chinese intervention or Republicans will restore the intelligence staff just to annoy Democrats.

It’s a win either way.

—— Good interference? ——