this post was submitted on 24 Aug 2024
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German journalist Martin Bernklau typed his name and location into Microsoft's Copilot to see how his culture blog articles would be picked up by the chatbot, according to German public broadcaster SWR.

The answers shocked Bernklau. Copilot falsely claimed Bernklau had been charged with and convicted of child abuse and exploiting dependents. It also claimed that he had been involved in a dramatic escape from a psychiatric hospital and had exploited grieving women as an unethical mortician.

...

Bernklau believes the false claims may stem from his decades of court reporting in Tübingen on abuse, violence, and fraud cases. The AI seems to have combined this online information and mistakenly cast the journalist as a perpetrator.

Microsoft attempted to remove the false entries but only succeeded temporarily. They reappeared after a few days, SWR reports. The company's terms of service disclaim liability for generated responses.

...

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[–] [email protected] 106 points 3 months ago (5 children)

I really hope he sues them and establishes case law that companies are 100% responsible for all AI generated content. If we let them get away with this it's only going to get worse from here.

[–] [email protected] 47 points 3 months ago (2 children)

I'm fairly certain something like that has already happened with Canadian Airlines. A person asked about bereavement travel and the AI chat bot claimed one thing and the company refused to honor it. IIRC, the court said the company had to abide by what the chatbot said.

[–] [email protected] 33 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Here's the story.

The actual monetary loss to Air Canada (known affectionately as Fuckstick Flights Inc.) was insignificant, but the PR was bad.

Then again, I can't remember the last time AC had positive press. Before that they forced a guy with cerebral palsy to drag himself off the plane.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 3 months ago

JFC. They literally stood there while he struggled. What the actual fuck?

[–] [email protected] 8 points 3 months ago

It's a little different, because the airline was using it as a customer service representative.

[–] [email protected] 27 points 3 months ago

I am so, so looking forward to the legal quagmire that is pretty much anything involving AI.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 3 months ago

Within the context it's presented I 100% agree with this. The airline case the AI was basically replacing a human agent/representative, so they were liable in the same way as if a human had provided the misinformation.

In this case, it's presenting details as fact as if they'd come from legit news sources etc. They should face the same penalty as a news agency would be libel.

Now if it's just an AI NPC in a game going a bit off the rails, that's just entertainment. So long as nobody gets to pull the "we're not really news, just entertainment" bullshit.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 months ago

I mean, if I could think of anywhere I would least like to pull that kind of nonsense it'd be Germany.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 3 months ago (1 children)

You hope that will be the legal standard? I fear it.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 3 months ago (2 children)

Why? What possible downside is there in holding companies accountable for what they produce?

[–] [email protected] -3 points 3 months ago (1 children)

quite frankly because I have hardly ever seen governments regulating technology having good results; we should mostly be allowed to experiment with technology without governments telling us how to do it, this is how we make human progress

The guy who wrote https://www.eff.org/cyberspace-independence didn't know about large language models yet but his thoughts apply to them too tbh.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

In the common law system (which Germany is not) this is already actionable by defamation torts. It's no different from you installing faulty wiring and burning your neighbor's house down. If you cause damages, you pay for them. Something being digital isn't a magic externality that makes you not responsible.