Justice Samuel A. Alito said neither he nor his clerks use artificial intelligence in their court work, and he doubts any of his fellow Supreme Court justices do, either.
He also said he’s still on the fence when it comes to the big question of the likelihood of the AI doomsday scenario, where rogue agents bring about the death of humanity.
“I’m waiting to find the answer, I don’t really know. Its capabilities appear to be pretty formidable,” he told The Washington Times during an interview in his office at the court ahead of publication of his new book, “So Ordered: An Originalist’s View of the Constitution, the Court and our Country.”
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The book, out on Oct. 6, was published by “Basic Liberty.”
“I certainly haven’t used it for any court work. I haven’t surveyed my colleagues, I’m pretty sure they haven’t, and our clerks haven’t,” he said.
He said he doesn’t think it would even be possible to install it on the court’s computers.
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He also said he hasn’t spotted it in briefs submitted to the court.
AI use in the legal profession has become a major issue.
At least two federal judges had to withdraw and correct rulings after revealing that they contained so-called “AI hallucinations.” That’s when a generative AI tool fabricates something — in this case a legal citation or an erroneous holding of a valid case.
Lawyers who use AI have been sanctioned by judges, including paying fines or having their ability to practice law suspended before some courts.
Justice Alito, in the interview, recalled an experiment run by Adam Unikowsky, a lawyer who has argued several cases before the Supreme Court.
Mr. Unikowsky made waves with his experiment where he asked Claude, Anthropic’s AI tool, to try to construct a Supreme Court oral argument using the briefs filed in a case, as well as the justices’ actual questions.
He said the AI delivered a capable argument, though it occasionally missed the nuance of a justice’s line of questions.
Mr. Unikowsky appeared for oral argument in a case earlier this year and Justice Alito decided to poke him a bit over the experiment.
“Just as a joke I asked him whether he would like us to have Claude decide this case. He said no, I trust the judgment of the justices,” Justice Alito said.
He said someone actually did run the case through Claude, asking it to predict the outcome. Claude said Mr. Unikowsky would lose on an 8-1 decision.
In fact, his position lost in a unanimous ruling written by Justice Sonia Sotomayor.
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