State Supreme Court Candidate’s (Probably) AI-Generated Website Invented a Fake Sitting Justice,…

In April 2024, Washington State Supreme Court candidate Scott Edwards faced scrutiny over his campaign website, which contained inaccurate information about the current composition of the state's highest court. The candidate's platform listed several individuals who were not sitting justices, including deceased figures, retired members, and a person who appeared to have no record of ever serving on the court.

What happened

Scott Edwards, a lawyer campaigning for Justice Position No. 1, published a list of current justices on his website that included several factual errors. Specifically, the site listed Susan Owens, who had retired and passed away, and Mary I. Yu, who had also retired. The list also featured a "Monty J. Shaw," an individual whom Chief Justice Debra Stephens confirmed had never served on the court. Investigations into the identity of Monty J. Shaw yielded no record of a legal career, identifying instead several private citizens, a fictional character from a television series, and a musician with the same name. The musician’s online presence featured an AI-generated profile image and vocals that appeared to be synthetic, raising questions about whether the candidate’s website content had been generated by a hallucinatory AI model. Following inquiries regarding these discrepancies, Edwards updated his website to reflect the correct list of justices without providing a public explanation for the original errors.