i’m building an AI that answers nigerian legal questions from actual statute text.

one thing i’m trying hard to prevent is hallucinations, which looks like it was working until I asked it a simple question -
“how do I file a criminal case in court?”
a question that has nothing to do with company law. It should have said “I can’t find this.”
instead, it found a vaguely related section and confidently gave me an answer with a real-looking citation.
this is THE problem with using AI for law, wrong citation can cost you your career.
every lawyer i’ve spoken to says the same thing: general AI tools make up Nigerian citations, and you can’t trust them.
now, the hard part isn’t getting AI to answer. It’s getting it to honestly say “I don’t know.”
that’s what I’m fixing next. be there!