Anthropic—Claude generated erroneous citations in expert witness testimony for Universal Music Group v. Anthropic lawsuit
In legal proceedings for Universal Music Group et al. v. Anthropic, expert witness testimony submitted by Anthropic's lawyers contained erroneous citations generated by Claude AI. The inaccuracies included incorrect article titles and author names that were not caught during manual review. Anthropic acknowledged the error in a court filing, characterized it as an honest mistake, and apologized to the court. The incident highlighted risks of AI hallucinations even when used by sophisticated parties in high-stakes legal contexts.
Scoring Impact
| Topic | Direction | Relevance | Contribution |
|---|---|---|---|
| AI Safety | -against | primary | -1.00 |
| Corporate Transparency | +toward | primary | +1.00 |
| Misinformation | +toward | secondary | -0.50 |
| Overall incident score = | -0.049 | ||
Score = avg(topic contributions) × significance (low ×0.5) × confidence (0.59)
Evidence (1 signal)
Anthropic acknowledged Claude generated erroneous citations in expert testimony for UMG v. Anthropic case and apologized
In Universal Music Group et al. v. Anthropic copyright lawsuit, expert witness testimony contained erroneous citations generated by Claude, including incorrect article titles and author names not caught during manual review. Anthropic filed acknowledgment in court, characterized it as honest mistake, and apologized.