To the extent federal judges acknowledge generative artificial intelligence at all, it’s to newsjack some cheap publicity by decrying it as a scourge or to cynically distract from discussing the ethical cesspool that’s developed on their watch. Which makes a recent Eleventh Circuit concurrence by Judge Kevin Newsom an intriguing change of pace. Because, over the course of a 32-page opinion, Newsom explains how he used ChatGPT and other large language model products to reach his decision.
And it makes a lot of sense.
An insurance company refused to cover its landscaper policyholder in a negligence claim over the installation of an in-ground trampoline. In fairness, that sounds like a deathtrap in the making if perfectly installed so I don’t know what a negligence claim would look like, but that’s neither here nor there. The question presented on appeal was whether or not installing a trampoline counts as “landscaping” based on the policy.
Judge Newsom begins his concurrence admitting that he agreed with the opinion in full but wished to “pull back the curtain on the process by which I thought through one of the issues in this case.”
Read the full report at
ABA Journal
In concurrence confession, appeals judge says ChatGPT research ‘less nutty’ than feared
Judge Kevin Newsom of the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals at Atlanta tried using ChatGPT to research the ordinary meaning of “landscaping,” and he’s not afraid to admit it.
It’s something that other judges and lawyers might want to try, Newsom wrote in a May 28 concurrence acknowledging that some might condemn his proposal as “heresy.”
Large language learning models powered by artificial intelligence are learning from “tons and tons of internet data,” making them useful for “their ability to accurately predict how normal people use language in their everyday lives,” Newsom wrote.
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202212581.pdf#page=25
