Delhi High Court advises not to use ChatGPT for legal decision-making

The Delhi High Court issued a warning against using artificial intelligence in place of human intelligence when making judicial decisions. In a lawsuit brought by Christian Louboutin, the court refused to rely on ChatGPT's responses, pointing out the constraints and probable flaws of AI-generated data. According to the court, AI can be used for preliminary study or comprehension but not for legal or factual matters.  

French luxury shoemaker, Christian Louboutin alleged that Shutiq, a partnership firm involved in the manufacture and sale of shoes, was engaged in the production of knockoff versions of the luxury shoe line, for which the former had a registered trademark for design and had established its goodwill in some of the other designs. To show that Christian Louboutin was, in fact, known for producing the design in question, a response from ChatGPT was produced before the court.

The court said that ChatGPT cannot be the basis for the adjudication of legal or factual issues in a court of law. The response of a large language model-based chatbot, such as ChatGPT, depends upon a host of factors, including the nature and structure of the query by the user, it said. The court said that there are possibilities of incorrect responses, fictional case laws, imaginative data, etc., generated by AI chatbots, and that the accuracy and reliability of AI-generated data are still grey areas. Based on a comparison of the shoes, the court eventually ruled in favour of the French shoemaker. However, it issued a word of caution that at the present stage of technological development pertaining to AI chatbots, they can, at best, be used for preliminary research and nothing more.