His prompts told the chatbot which conclusion the report was to reach: 3M not at fault for the Watson Grinding blast.
A specialist 3M retained to testify in the litigation over who bears responsibility for the Watson Grinding explosion drafted large parts of his expert report with ChatGPT, 404 Media reported, and the prompts he typed into the chatbot have since been made public.
The instructions are his own keystrokes: he asked the chatbot to help him produce a standout expert report backing 3M's standard of care, and told it the report was to put none of the blame for the Watson Grinding blast on the company.
The blast he was writing about tore through the Watson Grinding manufacturing plant in Houston in 2020, killing three people and demolishing some 200 homes. Dozens of homeowners have since sued 3M and Watson Grinding, alleging that 3M failed to maintain the plant's gas detection equipment as it should have and made further mistakes that helped bring about the blast. Their case is one of several over liability for the explosion.
How far AI reached into the matter is documented across court transcripts, deposition material and discovery filings, 404 Media reported — in litigation that has yet to conclude and that carries hundreds of millions of dollars in combined liability. Judges have already dealt with AI-written briefs and filings citing cases that do not exist; this pushes documented AI use in litigation into expert witness testimony itself.
It also shows that the specific prompts behind such testimony can be obtained through discovery while a case is still live — and that they can be embarrassing for the party that used them.