Woman used AI to tell court what happened the night her ex-boyfriend 'raped' her. It was a bad idea

A woman who alleged that her ex-boyfriend had raped her, prepared the cross-examination answers using an AI chatbot, which led to the judge dismissing the case. The said victim was referred to as C, while the defendant was known as R. She accused the man of having sex with her while she was drunk. She claimed that since she couldn't consent to it in this condition, it constituted rape. However, the case collapsed when R's lawyer told the court that she had used AI to prepare her case, and so it would be impossible to ascertain to what extent the AI bot had influenced her testimony.

Conversation logs showed that she used an AI tool to prepare the events of the night, consent, capacity, the physical evidence and how she behaved after it happened. R's lawyer said this means that it wouldn't be a fair trial because her testimony is bound to be affected by the AI bot. The Court of Appeal said that using AI to prepare for trial can amount to "witness coaching", which is strictly prohibited in the UK.

Court said AI could allow dishonest witnesses to improve their answers

"All witnesses, whether for the prosecution or defence, should be firmly discouraged from resorting to the use of AI to prepare for giving evidence," the court said. It added that in case of an honest witness, the use of AI "may alter the emphasis of his evidence to accommodate what he thinks may be a different, more accurate, or simply better remembered perception of events," while it may allow a dishonest witness to "rapidly calculate how his testimony may be improved."

It called for a retrial at the "earliest opportunity".

People have been increasingly using ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and other AI tools increasingly in their daily lives. However, its use has been questioned in cases involving law and education. It raises ethical concerns, such as in the case above, as LLMs mean the bots are gathering information from the internet, which can negatively affect the responses.