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Brian Hood was falsely accused of being guilty in a foreign bribery scandal that involved a subsidiary of the Reserve Bank of Australia back in 2000s
An Australian mayor has sued OpenAI over ChatGPT’s false claims that he has served in prison for bribery. This is the first-ever defamation case against the AI chatbot. Brian Hood, who was elected as the mayor of Hepburn Shire, became quite concerned about his reputation in public when he was told about ChaGPT’s false claims. According to Reuters, he was falsely accused of being guilty in a foreign bribery scandal that involved a subsidiary of the Reserve Bank of Australia back in 2000s.
ChatGPT faces its first defamation lawsuit
According to Reuters, his lawyers revealed that Hood was not guilty of the said charge. In fact, he did not work for the subsidiary, Note Printing Australia. He was the one who alerted the authorities about the payment of bribes to foreign officials to win currency printing contracts.
On March 21, the lawyers sent a letter of concern to ChatGPT-maker OpenAI. In this letter, the lawyers gave 28 days to the company to fix the errors about their client or face a possible defamation lawsuit.
OpenAI is yet to respond to this legal letter, the lawyers revealed.
ChatGPT has become one of the most famous AI chatbots globally. If Hood decides to go ahead with the lawsuit, it will be the first lawsuit to be filed against ChatGPT. James Naughton, a partner at Hood’s lawfirm Gordon Legal, in a statement told Reuters, “It would potentially be a landmark moment in the sense that it’s applying this defamation law to a new area of artificial intelligence and publication in the IT space.”
Appeal to Pause Development of Generative AI
Several leaders in the tech industry including billionaire Elon Musk and Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak called for an immediate halt on training AI systems that can outperform ChatGPT until a set of guidelines for AI is in place. However, Bill Gates thinks otherwise.
According to him, instead of stopping the development of AI systems, focusing on how to best use the advancements in AI technology will be more productive. He also emphasised on the benefits of artificial intelligence including the ability to help reduce societal inequities. He further highlighted the need to identify and address the potential risks associated with the technology.
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