The Court of Appeal of Alberta, Court of King’s Bench of Alberta, and Alberta Court of Justice have released a mass notice to the profession regarding the usage of large language models (“LLMs”).
LLMs are artificial intelligence systems that can generate text from a given prompt. The most notable LLM system is ChatGPT, but legal databases such as Casetest and Westlaw also offer law-specific LLMs.
The Notice highlights the concerns surrounding the potential fabrication of legal authorities through LLMs, and directly addresses the matter of legal references in submissions to the courts. The Courts urge that in all references to case law, statutes, or commentary in representations to the courts, “parties must rely exclusively on authoritative sources such as official court websites, commonly referenced commercial publishers, or well-establish public services such as CanLII”.
The read the complete notice to the profession, visit the court website here.
