India, July 6 -- The Supreme Court's decision yesterday to set aside orders passed by NCLT and NCLAT on the basis of fake AI-generated citations is a timely warning. It is not a rejection of artificial intelligence. It is a reminder that in matters of law, AI can assist the mind, but it cannot replace judgment. A court system may use machines to become faster, but it cannot allow machines to make it careless.

The problem is not that lawyers used AI. The problem is that they used it without verification. Fake judgments, hallucinated precedents and non-existent citations are not minor technical errors. In law, a false citation can distort reasoning, mislead a judge, burden the opposite party and damage public confidence. A hallucinated cas...