In what appears to be an embarrassing and ironic blunder, a top Stanford University professor has been accused of spreading AI-generated disinformation while serving as an expert witness in support of a law designed to curb AI-generated disinformation. artificial intelligence outside the election.

Jeff Hancock, founding director of Stanford’s Social Media Lab, presented his expert opinion earlier this month in Kohls v. Ellison, a lawsuit filed by a YouTuber and a Minnesota state representative who claim the state’s new law criminalizing the use of deepfakes to influence elections violates their First Amendment right to free speech.

His opinion included a reference to a study that purportedly found that “even when individuals are made aware of the existence of deepfakes, they may still struggle to distinguish between real and manipulated content.” But conformable for the plaintiff’s lawyers, the study cited by Hancock—titled “The Influence of Deepfake Videos on Political Attitudes and Behavior” and published in the Journal of Information Technology & Politics— actually doesn’t exist.

“The subpoena bears the hallmarks of being an artificial intelligence (AI) ‘hallucination,’ suggesting that at least the subpoena was generated by a large language model such as ChatGPT,” the plaintiffs wrote in a motion seeking to exclude Hancock’s expert opinion. “Plaintiffs do not know how this hallucination ended up in Hancock’s statement, but it calls into question the entire document, especially when much of the commentary contains no analytical methodology or logic.”

Allegations of Hancock’s use of AI were first reported by Minnesota Reformer. Hancock did not immediately respond to Gizmodo’s request for comment.

Minnesota is one of 20 states that have passed laws regulating the use of deepfakes in political campaigns. Its law prohibits knowingly or acting with reckless contempt the dissemination of a deepfake up to 90 days before an election, if the material is made without the consent of the person depicted and is intended to influence the results of the election.

The lawsuit challenging the law was filed by a conservative law firm on behalf of Minnesota state representative Mary Franson and Christopher Kohls, a YouTuber who uses Mr. Reagan.

A lawsuit filed by Kohls challenging California’s deeply fraudulent election law has led to a federal judge issuing a prior order last month preventing the entry into force of this law.