From Friday’s order by Justice of the Peace Decide Susan van Keulen in Harmony Music Group, Inc. v. Anthropic PBC (N.D. Cal.)
On the outset, the Courtroom notes that in the course of the listening to, Publishers requested this Courtroom to look at Anthropic’s professional, Ms. Chen and strike her declaration as a result of at the very least one of many citations therein appeared to have been an “AI hallucination”: a quotation to an article that didn’t exist and whose purported authors had by no means labored collectively. The Courtroom gave Anthropic time to analyze the circumstances surrounding the challenged quotation. Having thought of the declaration of Anthropic’s counsel and Publishers’ response, the Courtroom finds this situation is a severe one—if not fairly so grave because it at first appeared.
Anthropic’s counsel protests that this was “an trustworthy quotation mistake” however admits that Claude.ai was used to “correctly format” at the very least three citations and, in doing so, generated a fictitious article identify with inaccurate authors (who’ve by no means labored collectively) for the quotation at situation. That may be a plain and easy AI hallucination. But the underlying article exists, was correctly linked to and was positioned by a human being utilizing Google search; so, this isn’t a case the place “attorneys and specialists [have] abdicate[d] their impartial judgment and significant considering expertise in favor of ready-made, AI-generated solutions….”
A remaining severe concern, nonetheless, is Anthropic’s attestation {that a} “guide quotation examine” was carried out however “didn’t catch th[e] error.” It’s not clear how such an error—together with an entire change in article title—might have escaped correction throughout guide cite-check by a human being. Moreover, though the undersigned’s [i.e., the Magistrate Judge’s] standing order doesn’t expressly handle using AI by events or counsel, Part VIII.G of [District] Decide Lee’s Civil Standing Order requires a certification “that lead trial counsel has personally verified the content material’s accuracy.” Neither the certification nor verification has occurred right here. In sum, the Courtroom STRIKES-IN-PART Ms. Chen’s declaration, putting paragraph 9 [which contains the footnote that contains the citation with the hallucination], and notes for the file that this situation undermines the general credibility of Ms. Chen’s written declaration, an element within the Courtroom’s conclusion.
Due to ChatGPT Is Consuming the World for the pointer; it additionally discusses extra in regards to the substantive position of paragraph 9 within the declaration. Here is extra backstory (from an earlier put up):
The Declaration filed by a “Knowledge Scientist at Anthropic” in Harmony Music Group, Inc. v. Anthropic PBC consists of this quotation:
However the cited article does not appear to exist at that quotation or at that URL, and Google discovered no different references to any article by that title….
Here is the clarification, from one among Anthropic’s legal professionals (emphasis added):
Our investigation of the matter confirms that this was an trustworthy quotation mistake and never a fabrication of authority. The primary quotation in footnote 3 of Dkts. 340-3 (sealed) and 341-2 (public) consists of an inaccurate writer and title, whereas offering an accurate hyperlink to, and appropriately figuring out the publication, quantity, web page numbers, and 12 months of publication of, the article referenced by Ms. Chen as a part of the premise for her assertion in paragraph 9. We apologize for the inaccuracy and any confusion this error brought about.
The American Statistician article reviewed and relied upon by Ms. Chen [the Anthropic expert], and accessible on the first hyperlink supplied in footnote 3 of Dkts. 340-3 and 341-2, is titled Binomial Confidence Intervals for Uncommon Occasions: Significance of Defining Margin of Error Relative to Magnitude of Proportion, by Owen McGrath and Kevin Burke. A Latham & Watkins affiliate positioned that article as potential further assist for Ms. Chen’s testimony utilizing a Google search. The article exists and helps Ms. Chen’s testimony in her declaration and on the Might 13, 2025 listening to, which she proffered primarily based on her pre-existing data concerning the suitable relative margin of error for uncommon occasions. A replica of the whole article is connected as Exhibit A.
Particularly, “within the context of small or rare-event success possibilities,” the authors “counsel proscribing the vary of values to εR ∈ [0.1, 0.5]”—which means, a relative margin of error between 10% to 50%—”as larger values result in imprecision and poor interval protection, whereas decrease values result in pattern sizes which can be prone to be impractically giant for a lot of research.” See Exhibit A, at 446. This advice is completely in line with Ms. Chen’s testimony, which proposes utilizing a 25% relative margin of error primarily based on her experience.
After the Latham & Watkins group recognized the supply as potential further assist for Ms. Chen’s testimony, I requested Claude.ai to supply a correctly formatted authorized quotation for that supply utilizing the hyperlink to the right article. Sadly, though offering the right publication title, publication 12 months, and hyperlink to the supplied supply, the returned quotation included an inaccurate title and incorrect authors. Our guide quotation examine didn’t catch that error. Our quotation examine additionally missed further wording errors launched within the citations in the course of the formatting course of utilizing Claude.ai. These wording errors are: (1) that the right title of the supply in footnote 2 of Ms. Chen’s declaration is Computing Needed Pattern Dimension, not, as listed in footnote 2, Pattern Dimension Estimation, and (2) the writer/preparer of the third supply cited in footnote 3 is “Windward Environmental LLC”, not “Decrease Windward Environmental LLC.” Once more, we apologize for these quotation errors.
Ms. Chen, in addition to counsel, reviewed the whole textual content of Ms. Chen’s testimony and likewise reviewed every of the cited references previous to submitting Ms. Chen’s declaration to the Courtroom. In reviewing her declaration each previous to submission and in preparation for the listening to on Might 13, 2025, Ms. Chen reviewed the precise article out there on the first hyperlink in footnote 3 of her declaration and connected hereto as Exhibit A, and the article helps the proposition expressed in her declaration with respect to the suitable margin of error.
Throughout the manufacturing and cite-checking course of for Ms. Chen’s declaration, the Latham & Watkins group reviewing and modifying the declaration checked that the substance of the cited doc supported the proposition within the declaration, and likewise corrected the quantity and web page numbers within the quotation, however didn’t discover the inaccurate title and authors, regardless of clicking on the hyperlink supplied within the footnote and reviewing the article. The Latham & Watkins group additionally didn’t discover the extra wording errors in footnotes 2 and three of Ms. Chen’s declaration, as described above in paragraph 6.
This was an embarrassing and unintentional mistake. The article in query genuinely exists, was reviewed by Ms. Chen and helps her opinion on the right margin of error to make use of for sampling. The insinuation that Ms. Chen’s opinion was influenced by false or fabricated data is thus incorrect. As is the insinuation that Ms. Chen lacks assist for her opinion. Furthermore, the hyperlink supplied each to this Courtroom and to Plaintiffs was correct and, when pasted right into a browser, calls up the right article upon which Ms. Chen had relied. Had Plaintiffs’ counsel raised the quotation situation once they first found it, we might and would have confirmed that the article cited was the one upon which Ms. Chen relied and corrected the quotation mistake.
We’ve got carried out procedures, together with a number of ranges of further evaluate, to work to make sure that this doesn’t happen once more and have preserved, on the Courtroom’s course, all data associated to Ms. Chen’s declaration. I perceive that Anthropic has additionally preserved all data associated to Ms. Chen’s declaration as nicely….
