This is reporting on an instance where a lawyer used ChatGPT to generate a legal brief (complete with made-up citations) that was actually submitted to the court, and now the opposing counsel, the judge, and the lawyer's client all have to deal with the repercussions.
It is not a "fake problem"; it is a problem that has cost at least thousands of dollars in damage in one instance that we know about.
Would you feel the same way if the lawyer used a Wikipedia page that had made-up citations in his legal brief? What regulations do we need Wikipedia to stop this from happening?
Average people understand the limitations of Wikipedia (which has been around for 20+ years).
LLMs are new, and people don't understand their limitations yet.
Plus, we're trained from birth to interpret plausible-sounding text as likely correct and true. LLMs generate plausible-sounding text without regard for truth. So now we can either fix the LLM models or become much more critical readers/listeners. Unfortunately I don't see either happening anytime soon.
This has happened with Wikipedia, and then people talked about it on the news, in social media, and in classrooms for the last decade to the point most people typically say "remember to verify your wikipedia information".
The only problem there is that an unqualified lawyer was permitted to practice. However, it is understood that section of qualified people is imprecise and as such there is also clear path to revoking the right to practice. For all practical purposes, this is an already solved problem; one solved long ago.
Lawyers can and do make up bullshit briefs, but they're not allowed to do so, there is a requirement for them to ensure that they are valid - there is a clearly defined party who is responsible for any problems caused to the court, and that is the particular lawyer.
It is not a "fake problem"; it is a problem that has cost at least thousands of dollars in damage in one instance that we know about.