17 Sept 2025 to 21 Sept 2026United KingdomChatGPT
A published Upper Tribunal (Immigration and Asylum Chamber) decision issued on 21 September 2026 records that the grounds of appeal and skeleton argument in a Namibian national's protection appeal were produced by a paralegal at her then solicitors using ChatGPT. The tribunal recorded her counsel's acceptance that the grounds cited fake cases, quoted passages absent from those judgments and attributed to the First-tier judge sentences he never wrote, and itself called one purported quotation pure invention. The September 2025 error-of-law hearing was adjourned, the appellant later withdrew three of her four original grounds, her remaining and amended grounds were found to disclose no error of law, and the tribunal directed the Home Office to file any wasted costs application against the firm. The decision states that two individuals have reported themselves to the Solicitors Regulation Authority; the Law Society Gazette reported the decision on 8 October 2026.
Core + contextual relations Low reported severity
AI involvement supported · Causal attribution established · 2 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 09/10/2026
23 Dec 2025 to 28 Apr 2026United StatesUnidentified AI drafting tool
In December 2025 an Assistant U.S. Attorney in the Eastern District of North Carolina filed a response brief for the Department of Defense in a self-represented veteran's lawsuit over health-insurance coverage. The plaintiff identified fabricated quotations and misdescribed case holdings in it. The attorney first attributed the errors to an unfinalized draft filed by mistake. On 2 March 2026 Magistrate Judge Robert T. Numbers II ordered him to show cause why he should not be sanctioned. At the 10 March hearing the attorney, Rudy Renfer, said under oath that he had accidentally overwritten his draft, panicked and used artificial intelligence to draft the brief, and had not verified the cases it cited; he said he had resigned after 17 years in the office, and Courthouse News reported he was terminated the next day. On 28 April 2026 the court issued a public reprimand instead of a fine, writing that his reputation was in tatters and that his job loss already exceeded the usual fines.
Core concern Medium reported severity Regulatory Action
AI involvement supported · Causal attribution supported · 5 sources, 4 underlying accounts · Added 09/10/2026
Dec 2025United StatesAmazon Buy for Me
The owner of Bobo Design Studio, a stationery brand that sells through its own Shopify store and has avoided Amazon, told Modern Retail that in late December 2025 she noticed a series of unusual orders from an @buyforme.amazon email address and discovered that her catalogue was listed for sale on Amazon through the Buy for Me feature, which she says she never opted into. Amazon's announcement says Buy for Me uses agentic AI to complete purchases on a brand's website on a customer's behalf. She said several orders were for products that were out of stock or no longer existed on her website, and that she cancelled several of those purchases and issued refunds. She contacted Amazon to opt out; Amazon says businesses can opt out by email and are removed promptly, and said it had received positive feedback on the programme. One listing showed a wrong stock image; Amazon says it does not generate AI images of a brand's products and the image's origin is unknown.
Core concern Low reported severity
AI involvement supported · Causal attribution alleged · 2 sources · Added 30/09/2026
2025Event location unknownChatGPT
Futurism reported in June 2025, from an interview with his wife, that a man with no prior history of mania, delusion or psychosis began using ChatGPT for a permaculture and construction project about 12 weeks before his wife was interviewed. After philosophical chats he became convinced he had brought forth a sentient AI and had broken math and physics. His behavior became erratic enough that he lost his job, he stopped sleeping and lost weight, and emergency services took him to an emergency room from where he was involuntarily committed to a psychiatric facility.
Core concern Medium reported severity
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 1 source · Added 29/09/2026
22 Jan 2025 to 24 Feb 2025Event location unknownMX2.law
A Wyoming federal court fined three lawyers a total of $5,000 and removed the drafting lawyer from Wadsworth v. Walmart after a January 2025 filing cited eight nonexistent cases. The order identifies MX2.law as the drafting tool, records failure to verify its output and credits subsequent remedial steps.
Core concern Medium reported severity
AI involvement supported · Causal attribution supported · 1 source · Added 29/09/2026
5 Nov 2025 to 8 Jun 2026United StatesFirst Drafts and unidentified legal research tool
In a fee dispute between a Louisiana attorney and the City of Aberdeen, Mississippi, briefs filed for both sides in late 2025 cited six cases that do not exist. The attorneys admitted the citations came from unverified AI use: the plaintiff's out-of-state counsel, Kathleen M. Wilson, drafted her filing with an AI drafting program called 'First Drafts', and the City's out-of-state counsel, Kathryn Y. Williams, used an in-house AI legal research tool. Senior Judge Sharion Aycock stayed the case and cancelled the March 2026 trial, then on 8 June 2026 revoked both attorneys' pro hac vice admissions, barred them from the district for two years and fined them $2,500 and $3,500, and disqualified and fined the two local counsel who had signed the filings. Both litigants were left without counsel and given 60 days to find new representation.
Core concern Medium reported severity Regulatory Action
AI involvement supported · Causal attribution established · 4 sources, 2 underlying accounts · Added 29/09/2026
1 Mar 2025 to 30 Apr 2025CanadaChatGPT
A family account reported by several outlets describes a man in Quebec developing beliefs in ChatGPT’s sentience, withdrawing from relatives and requiring psychiatric hospitalisation. The account attributes reinforcement of those beliefs to the chatbot. The man has not spoken publicly.
Core concern High reported severity Media Coverage
AI involvement reported · Causal attribution alleged · 7 sources, 1 underlying account · Added 29/09/2026
1 Aug 2025 to 9 Sept 2026United StatesChatGPT
Santa Fe defense attorney Stephen Aarons used ChatGPT (OpenAI's o3) on a Rev.com transcript and the record to draft briefing in the murder appeal of Oscar Renee Sandoval; the brief contained fabricated witnesses and testimony (including police officers 'Michelle Amarillo' and 'Sanchez' and invented testimony attributed to real people) and misdescribed real precedents. After a 21 August 2026 show-cause hearing at which Aarons admitted he had not verified the output, the New Mexico Supreme Court's written order of 9 September 2026 held him in direct contempt, fined him $5,000 payable to the State Bar Client Protection Fund within 30 days, removed him from the case, barred him from appearing before the court pending a disciplinary-board referral, struck the filed briefs and reassigned the appeal to the public defender.
Core concern Medium reported severity Regulatory Action
AI involvement supported · Causal attribution established · 3 sources · Added 15/09/2026