3M expert witness wrote up to 90% of report with ChatGPT in $61M explosion verdict

In a wrongful-death lawsuit over a fatal industrial explosion, a jury awarded $61 million in damages and found 3M 30% liable. Court records revealed that 3M's hired expert witness, Josh Autenrieth, generated 85–90% of his expert report with ChatGPT, with prompts explicitly instructing the model to argue that 3M bore zero fault—a fact surfaced by plaintiff lawyers at trial and first reported by 404 Media's Jason Koebler. The case is widely seen as a landmark example of generative AI penetrating courtroom expert testimony.

Confirmed

• Jury awarded $61 million; 3M found 30% liable
• The explosion at Watson Grinding killed 3 people and damaged roughly 200 homes
• Court records show 85–90% of Autenrieth's report was generated by ChatGPT
• Prompts included leading instructions to argue "3M zero fault"

Why it matters

• Commentators including @MilesBrundage and @SumitGup say the case raises concerns about the admissibility and ethics of AI-generated content in legal proceedings
• Authors like @esporx stress that expert reports should rest on rigorous analysis; generating conclusions via LLM with predetermined outcomes amplifies hallucination and bias risks and undermines evidentiary reliability
• The case may become a key reference for future legal-industry rules on AI use

2026-08-18 ~ 2026-08-18 · 5 related posts

• Expert witness used ChatGPT to write defense report for 3M in explosion lawsuit — esporx · 2026-08-17
• Expert witness in $61M fatal explosion lawsuit used ChatGPT to write court report — Miles_Brundage · 2026-08-18
• [source] 3M Expert Witness Relied on ChatGPT for 85% of Report, Jury Awards $61M Against Company — Justgototheeffinmoon · 2026-08-18

2 near-duplicate retellings: SumitGup · ArtificialOther