Expert witness embarrassed after AI-generated report exposed in 2020 explosion lawsuit

The Watson Grinding explosion in Houston in 2020, which resulted in three deaths and dozens of injuries, led to multiple lawsuits against 3M for alleged failures in gas detection maintenance. In a recent hearing, plaintiff counsel uncovered that the defense's expert witness, Josh Autenrieth of KnightHawk Engineering, had generated the bulk of his expert report using ChatGPT, with the prompts publicly accessible online.

When questioned, Autenrieth said he did not understand how the AI worked, prompting a three-hour pause to review the prompts. Court documents show he billed his firm for at least 174 hours at $475 per hour. KnightHawk's vice president, Nathan Knight, asserted that AI was merely an assistive tool and that Autenrieth retained full professional responsibility for his conclusions. Recent juries have awarded substantial verdicts to plaintiffs in related cases, though specific monetary figures are not disclosed here.