Tucked in a two-sentence footnote in a voluminous court opinion, a federal judge recently called out immigration agents using artificial intelligence to write use-of-force reports, raising concerns that it could lead to inaccuracies and further erode public confidence in how police have handled the immigration crackdown in the Chicago area and ensuing protests.
U.S. District Judge Sara Ellis wrote the footnote in a 223-page opinion issued last week, noting that the practice of using ChatGPT to write use-of-force reports undermines the agents’ credibility and “may explain the inaccuracy of these reports.” She described what she saw in at least one body camera video, writing that an agent asks ChatGPT to compile a narrative for a report after giving the program a brief sentence of description and several images.
The judge noted factual discrepancies between the official narrative about those law enforcement responses and what body camera footage showed. But experts say the use of AI to write a report that depends on an officer’s specific perspective without using an officer’s actual experience is the worst possible use of the technology and raises serious concerns about accuracy and privacy.
Law enforcement agencies across the country have been grappling with how to create guardrails that allow officers to use the increasingly available AI technology while maintaining accuracy, privacy and professionalism. Experts said the example recounted in the opinion didn't meet that challenge.
“What this guy did is the worst of all worlds. Giving it a single sentence and a few pictures — if that’s true, if that’s what happened here — that goes against every bit of advice we have out there. It’s a nightmare scenario,” said Ian Adams, assistant criminology professor at the University of South Carolina who serves on a task force on artificial intelligence through the Council for Criminal Justice, a nonpartisan think tank.
The Department of Homeland Security did not respond to requests for comment, and it was unclear if the agency had guidelines or policies on the use of AI by agents. The body camera footage cited in the order has not yet been released.
Adams said few departments have put policies in place, but those that have often prohibit the use of predictive AI when writing reports justifying law enforcement decisions, especially use-of-force reports. Courts have established a standard referred to as objective reasonableness when considering whether a use of force was justified, relying heavily on the perspective of the specific officer in that specific scenario.
“We need the specific articulated events of that event and the specific thoughts of that specific officer to let us know if this was a justified use of force,” Adams said. “That is the worst case scenario, other than explicitly telling it to make up facts, because you’re begging it to make up facts in this high-stakes situation.”
Besides raising concerns about an AI-generated report inaccurately characterizing what happened, the use of AI also raises potential privacy concerns.
Katie Kinsey, chief of staff and tech policy counsel at the Policing Project at NYU School of Law, said if the agent in the order was using a public ChatGPT version, he probably didn't understand he lost control of the images the moment he uploaded them, allowing them to be part of the public domain and potentially used by bad actors.
Kinsey said from a technology standpoint most departments are building the plane as it’s being flown when it comes to AI. She said it’s often a pattern in law enforcement to wait until new technologies are already being used and in some cases mistakes being made to then talk about putting guidelines or policies in place.
“You would rather do things the other way around, where you understand the risks and develop guardrails around the risks,” Kinsey said. “Even if they aren’t studying best practices, there’s some lower hanging fruit that could help. We can start from transparency.”
Kinsey said while federal law enforcement considers how the technology should be used or not used, it could adopt a policy like those put in place in Utah or California recently, where police reports or communications written using AI have to be labeled.
The photographs the officer used to generate a narrative also caused accuracy concerns for some experts.
Well-known tech companies like Axon have begun offering AI components with their body cameras to assist in writing incident reports. Those AI programs marketed to police operate on a closed system and largely limit themselves to using audio from body cameras to produce narratives because the companies have said programs that attempt to use visuals are not effective enough for use.
“There are many different ways to describe a color, or a facial expression or any visual component. You could ask any AI expert and they would tell you prompts return very different results between different AI applications, and that gets complicated with a visual component,” said Andrew Guthrie Ferguson, a law professor at George Washington University Law School.
“There's also a professionalism questions. Are we OK with police officers using predictive analytics?" he added. "It’s about what the model thinks should have happened, but might not be what actually happened. You don’t want it to be what ends up in court, to justify your actions.”
FILE - A Federal Patrol agent's badge is seen near an Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Broadview, Ill., Oct. 3, 2025. (AP Photo/Erin Hooley, File)
NEW YORK (AP) — Wall Street is losing ground on Monday at the start of a week full of economic reports that could drive where interest rates, and thus stock prices, go.
The S&P 500 fell 0.3% in afternoon trading, coming off its first losing week in the last three. The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 137 points, or 0.3%, as of 12:55 p.m. Eastern time, and the Nasdaq composite was 0.5% lower.
Technology stocks, including companies in the artificial-intelligence industry, were among the heaviest weights on the market following their scary swings last week.
Nvidia, the chip company that’s become the face of the AI boom, rose 1.7%. It was one of the strongest forces pushing upward on the S&P 500 and cushioning some of the impact from losses elsewhere on Monday after dropping 4.1% last week.
Oracle sank another 1.9% following its 12.7% tumble last week, which was its worst in more than seven years. Broadcom fell 5.1%.
AI stocks have been shaky on worries that all the billions of dollars flowing into chips and data centers may not produce a big-enough payoff of profits and productivity to make it worth it. The doubts are causing cracks for the industry, whose earlier surges was the main driver for the U.S. market’s rally to records.
Besides AI, the main focus on Wall Street this week will be what several big updates on the U.S. economy’s health say.
On Tuesday will come the jobs report for November, and economists expect it to show employers added 40,000 more jobs than they cut during the month. Thursday will bring an update on the inflation that U.S. consumers are feeling, and economists expect it to show inflation was at 3.1% last month, still higher than households and policymakers would like.
Such data is under the microscope because the Federal Reserve is trying to figure out if a slowing job market or high inflation is the bigger problem for the economy. The Fed is in a potentially tough spot because fixing one of those problems by moving interest rates would likely worsen the other in the short term.
The hope on Wall Street is that the job market weakens, but only by a little: enough to get the Fed to lower interest rates but not so much that a recession swamps the economy. Wall Street loves lower rates because they can give the economy and prices for investments a boost, even if they also may worsen inflation.
“With the Fed still appearing to be more focused on labor-market weakness than inflation, we’re likely facing a ‘bad news is good’ scenario for the jobs report,” according to Chris Larkin, managing director, trading and investing, at E-Trade from Morgan Stanley.
“As long as the numbers don’t suggest employment is falling off a cliff,” that would mean the market would likely welcome soft numbers, he said.
The spotlight will be brightest on the unemployment rate, not the overall job growth numbers, because the latter is feeling downward pressure from a drop-off in immigrant workers. Economists expect Tuesday’s report to show the unemployment rate at 4.4%, which would keep it near its highest and worst level since 2021.
Treasury yields eased in the bond market ahead of the updates. A report earlier on Monday morning also said that a measure of manufacturing strength in New York state unexpectedly weakened, when economists expected to see continued growth.
The yield on the 10-year Treasury fell to 4.18% from 4.19% late Friday.
Elsewhere on Wall Street, shares of iRobot tumbled 72.6% after the maker of Roomba vacuums said holders of its stock will likely face a total loss after it filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection over the weekend. The company has reached an agreement with its primary contract manufacturer, Picea, to buy it through a process supervised by a U.S. bankruptcy court.
In stock markets abroad, indexes rose in Europe following weaker finishes in Asia.
Indexes fell 1.3% in Hong Kong and 0.6% in Shanghai after the Chinese government reported a drop in investment in factory equipment, infrastructure and other fixed assets. It’s the latest signal that demand in the world’s second-largest economy remains weak.
Japan’s Nikkei 225 sank 1.3% after a quarterly survey of big manufacturers by the central bank showed a slight improvement in sentiment. That could encourage the Bank of Japan to go ahead with a hike to interest rates.
AP Business Writer Elaine Kurtenbach contributed.
Specialists Alex Weitzman, left, and Meric Greenbaum work on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, Thursday, Dec. 11, 2025. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)
A currency trader watches monitors near a screen showing the Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI), left, and the foreign exchange rate between U.S. dollar and South Korean won at the foreign exchange dealing room of the Hana Bank headquarters in Seoul, South Korea, Monday, Dec. 15, 2025. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)
A currency trader passes by a screen showing the Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI), left, and the foreign exchange rate between U.S. dollar and South Korean won at the foreign exchange dealing room of the Hana Bank headquarters in Seoul, South Korea, Monday, Dec. 15, 2025. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)
A currency trader works near a screen showing the Korea Composite Stock Price Index (KOSPI), top center left, and the foreign exchange rate between U.S. dollar and South Korean won, top center, at the foreign exchange dealing room of the Hana Bank headquarters in Seoul, South Korea, Monday, Dec. 15, 2025. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)
Trader William Lawrence works on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange, Thursday, Dec. 11, 2025. (AP Photo/Richard Drew)
