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An Australian regional mayor has said he could sue OpenAI if it does not correct false claims by ChatGPT that it was jailed for bribery, in what would be the first libel suit against the automated text service. Brian Hood, who was elected mayor of Hepburn Shire, 120 km (75 miles) northwest of Melbourne, last November, grew concerned about his reputation when members of the public told him that ChatGPT had falsely named him as guilty in a bribery scandal. abroad involving a subsidiary. of the Reserve Bank of Australia in the early 2000s. Also Read: ChatGPT Helps User Get ₹17,000 Unclaimed Money. that is how
Hood worked for the subsidiary, Note Printing Australia, but was the person who tipped off authorities paying bribes to foreign officials to win currency printing contracts and was never charged with any wrongdoing, lawyers representing him said.
The lawyers said they sent a letter of concern to ChatGPT owner OpenAI on March 21, giving OpenAI 28 days to correct mistakes about its client or face a potential defamation lawsuit.
San Francisco-based OpenAI has not yet responded to Hood's legal letter, the lawyers said. OpenAI did not respond to an after-hours email from Reuters.
If Hood sues, it would likely be the first time anyone has sued the owner of ChatGPT over claims made by the automated language product that has become hugely popular since its launch last year. Microsoft Corp integrated ChatGPT into its Bing search engine in February.
A Microsoft spokesperson was not immediately available for comment.
"This would potentially be a landmark moment in that it applies this defamation law to a new area of artificial intelligence and publishing in the computing space," James Naughton, a partner at law firm Reuters, told Reuters. , Gordon Legal.
"He's an elected official, his reputation is critical to his role," Naughton said. Hood relied on a public record to shed light on corporate misconduct, "so it makes a difference to him if people in his community get access to this material."
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Australian payments for libel damages are generally capped at around A$400,000 ($269,360). Hood did not know the exact number of people who had accessed the false information about him, which determined the amount of the payment, but the nature of the defamatory statements was serious enough that he claimed more than A$200,000, he said. Naughton.
If Hood takes legal action, he would accuse ChatGPT of giving users a false impression of accuracy by not including footnotes, Naughton said.
"It's very difficult for someone to look behind that and say 'how does the algorithm find that answer? '" Naughton said. "It's very opaque."
