Even though generative AI chatbots are still in their infancy in widespread use, they've already gained a reputation as not being super reliable sources of information. Sure, they can give you some great recipes or vacation ideas, but when it comes to specific facts about past events, you'll need a fact checker on those. Bots like ChatGPT don't know the difference between fact and fiction and can simply make up things out of thin air. This penchant for delivering falsehoods in response to queries is the basis for a first-of-its-kind defamation lawsuit against Open AI, which created ChatGPT. The suit hinges on the intriguing legal question of whether ChatGPT's maker can be held liable for the fanciful claims it concocts.
The lawsuit involves a reporter from Georgia who was writing about a federal court case and asked ChatGPT to summarize it by giving it a PDF to examine. The chatbot provided a summary but included false allegations about a third party named Mark Walters, a radio host in Atlanta who is the one suing OpenAI. In its summary, ChatGPT said Walters had embezzled $5 million from an organization that supports the Second Amendment, which is something Walters had never even been accused of previously.
Walters is therefore suing OpenAI because its chatbot effectively published "libelous matter" by transmitting the claims to the journalist, exposing Walters to reputational damage and possible public scorn. The journalist never published the information, so it's...
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