AI blunders: CPS cites fake legal cases and Reform UK posts fake village cleanup

The risks of relying on artificial intelligence have been laid bare by two separate blunders — one in the justice system, the other in politics. A senior judge has warned of the dangers after the Crown Prosecution Service was forced to apologise for citing 'non-existent' legal cases generated by AI. Mr Justice Sweeting made the comments on Wednesday as he dismissed the appeals of two people challenging decisions to extradite them to Romania. The CPS had opposed the appeals at the High Court, but the judge revealed that two legal authorities it cited had been 'hallucinated' by an AI and did not actually exist. The same two cases were then cited in another document before the issue was raised with the CPS prior to a hearing in February. The CPS acknowledged and apologised for the error, stating it had not sought to mislead the court and that inquiries were being undertaken. In a letter in March, the CPS accepted the references were inaccurate and 'explained that they were likely to have originated from the use of artificial intelligence'. However, the CPS identified the critical failing as the fact that the reviewing lawyer did not properly check the accuracy of the document before it was filed and served. 'While the immediate source of the error may have been the use of generative artificial intelligence, the operative cause was human error in the failure to verify the authorities relied upon in formal submissions placed before the Court,' the judge said. The CPS emphasised that this was not a deliberate attempt to mislead, but rather an isolated incident arising from inadequate checking of written work. Mr Justice Sweeting noted that a full internal review had examined 78 other cases linked to the same lawyer and found no concerns, leading the CPS to believe there was a low risk of recurrence. 'I have accepted the apology given on behalf of the CPS and the assurance that there was no attempt to mislead,' he said. 'It would be naive to assume that there will not be an increasing use of artificial intelligence in legal work in future; indeed, that may be both necessary and beneficial. The episode highlights the risks of its use without appropriate oversight, particularly for legal research.' In a statement, a CPS spokesperson said: 'We apologised to the court for this error made in legal submissions. As soon as this was identified, we carried out an internal review to establish how this occurred.' The CPS does not use AI in legal decisions or when determining charging outcomes. The second blunder came from a Reform UK branch, which was forced to apologise after posting AI-generated photos of a village clean-up. The party admitted the error and apologised, but gave no further details.