Stanford Expert Accused Of Using AI To Fabricate Court Statement

Stanford professor Jeff Hancock is accused of using AI to fabricate citations in a court declaration defending Minnesota’s deepfake law.

Stanford communication professor and misinformation expert Jeff Hancock is under scrutiny after being accused of using artificial intelligence (AI) to fabricate parts of a court statement. as reported by The Stanford Daily.

Hancock, the founding director of Stanford’s Social Media Lab, submitted a 12-page declaration in November to a Minnesota court in defense of the state’s 2023 law criminalizing the use of deepfakes to influence elections, as reported by The Daily.

His testimony supported Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison, emphasizing the dangers of AI-generated media in spreading misinformation. Hancock argued deepfakes undermine traditional fact-checking and increase the persuasiveness of false information, says The Daily.

The declaration, which included 15 citations, has come under fire after two cited academic articles could not be located. These works were untraceable through their reported digital object identifiers or the journals cited, according to The Daily.

Attorney Frank Berdnarz, representing the plaintiffs, Republican State Representative Mary Franson and conservative social media satirist Christopher Kohls, challenged the integrity of Hancock’s testimony, as noted by The Daily.

Berdnarz argued that the questionable citations resembled AI-generated “hallucinations” and called for the document to be excluded from judicial consideration.

He stated, “The existence of a fictional citation Hancock (or his assistants) didn’t even bother to click calls into question the quality and veracity of the entire declaration,” as reported by The Daily.

Hancock, who was paid $600 per hour for his testimony, made his declaration under penalty of perjury. The professor has not commented on the allegations, reported The Daily.

Hancock, who teaches courses on communication and technology, was featured in a 2024 Netflix documentary with Bill Gates discussing AI’s future. He is slated to teach Truth, Trust, and Tech in spring 2025, exploring deception in digital media, noted The Daily.

Kohls, known online as Mr. Reagan, has previously opposed California laws targeting deceptive political media, including one addressing a manipulated campaign video of Vice President Kamala Harris, as noted by The Daily.

If proven true, these allegations cast a shadow over the credibility of academic expertise in high-stakes legal matters, where integrity is paramount.

If proven true, the allegations against Hancock highlight a profound contradiction: an expert on misinformation potentially fabricating evidence in a legal declaration. His role as a scholar who warns against the dangers of AI-generated deception stands in stark contrast to the accusation that he used the very tools he critiques to bolster his testimony.