The Delhi High Court has asserted that Artificial Intelligence (AI) cannot supplant human intelligence or the essential humane aspect within the adjudication process. It further emphasized that ChatGPT cannot serve as the foundation for the adjudication of legal or factual matters within a court of law.

Justice Prathiba M Singh emphasized that the precision and dependability of data generated by AI remain uncertain. She noted that, at most, AI tools can be employed for initial comprehension or preliminary research purposes. These remarks were made in the context of a lawsuit brought by the luxury brand Christian Louboutin against a partnership firm, which was accused of producing and selling shoes that purportedly infringed upon the brand's trademark.

The plaintiff's legal representative presented evidence that "Red Sole Shoe" was a registered trademark in India and also provided the court with responses generated by ChatGPT concerning the brand's "reputation."

“The said tool (ChatGPT) cannot be the basis of adjudication of legal or factual issues in a court of law. The response of a Large Language Model (LLM) based chatbots such as ChatGPT, which is sought to be relied upon by the Counsel for the Plaintiff, depends upon a host of factors including the nature and structure of query put by the user, the training data, etc. Further, there are possibilities of incorrect responses, fictional case laws, imaginative data etc. generated by AI chatbots,” said the court in a recent order.

“Accuracy and reliability of AI generated data is still in the grey area. There is no doubt in the mind of the Court that at the present stage of technological development, AI cannot substitute either the human intelligence or the humane element in the adjudicatory process. At best the tool could be utilised for a preliminary understanding or for preliminary research and nothing more,” the court observed.

Based on the comparative analysis of the products of the two parties, the court ultimately ruled that the defendant had a “clear intention to imitate and gain monetarily on the strength of the reputation and goodwill” of the plaintiff.