Prompts, privilege & discovery
Jones v. Delta Air Lines, Inc.
After a pro se deponent admitted having ChatGPT open, the court barred AI or outside assistance while answering deposition questions.
Live AI use barred01
Case background
Material facts
A self-represented plaintiff used ChatGPT during her deposition to assist her in knowing how to “proceed legally as a pro se representation, the same as if there was in person an attorney in which they would object to different things.” (Slip op. at 10.)
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The decision
The court’s ruling
The court ordered that she could not “use ChatGPT or any other AI platform, any other person, any other anything” to assist in answering deposition questions. (ECF 124 at 11.) It found no attorney-client privilege covering the conduct and prohibited the plaintiff from using AI or receiving outside help to formulate deposition answers.
Why it matters
What the decision means
The order protects the integrity of live testimony; it does not require wholesale production of prompt history. A witness must answer deposition questions without real-time AI or outside assistance, even if self-represented.
Limit of the ruling. No prompt-history production was ordered, and later dismissal followed broader discovery noncompliance.
Primary reading