What happened

Jeff Hancock, a professor at Stanford University and an expert on AI and misinformation, provided an expert declaration in a Minnesota court case challenging the constitutionality of a new law banning political deepfakes. 

Intended to support the law, his testimony came under scrutiny after it was revealed that two of the academic citations he included do not exist. 

The plaintiffs in the case argue that these citations were likely generated by an AI model, such as ChatGPT, and refer to fictitious studies titled "Deepfakes and the Illusion of Authenticity" and "The Influence of Deepfake Videos on Political Attitudes and Behavior".

Why it happened

The controversy arose when attorneys for the plaintiffs, who were contesting the deepfake ban, discovered that the cited studies could not be found in any academic databases or journals. 

They argued that Hancock's references exhibit characteristics typical of AI "hallucinations," where an AI generates plausible-sounding but false information.