What Happened
Jeff Hancock, founding director of the Stanford Social Media Lab and a leading scholar of digital deception, submitted an expert declaration defending Minnesota's election deepfake law that cited academic studies which do not exist. Hancock admitted he had used GPT-4o to help survey literature and draft the declaration, and the model inserted fabricated references. The court found the fake citations shattered his credibility and threw out his testimony.
Impact
A federal judge excluded the expert declaration and rebuked the state, embarrassing both Stanford and the Minnesota Attorney General's office in a case that was itself about AI-driven misinformation.
How to Prevent This
- Verify every cited study exists in academic databases before signing sworn declarations
- Prohibit unreviewed LLM-drafted text in expert testimony and legal declarations
- Disclose AI assistance to retaining counsel and the court proactively
- Have independent colleagues audit reference lists in high-stakes documents
- Institute university and agency policies governing AI use in expert-witness work