As per the Australian Minister, ChatGPT has been making baseless allegations that the minister was imprisoned for bribery.
Brian Hood, regional Australian mayor, has expressed his intentions to possibly sue ChatGPT for defamation, which could potentially make him the first individual globally to take legal action against an artificial intelligence product.
The mayor of Hepburn Shire, Brian Hood, located approximately 120 km northwest of Melbourne, initiated preparations for a defamation case against ChatGPT after the AI product repeatedly made untrue accusations about his alleged imprisonment for bribery.
Hood stated that many of his acquaintances and relatives contacted him and informed him of ChatGPT’s untrue statements regarding his alleged participation in a bribery scandal that occurred at the Reserve Bank of Australia during the early 2000s.
Ironically, Mayor Hood, who had reported the very bribery case and helped resolve it, has been wrongly accused of being a participant in the same case, thanks to ChatGPT.
While working for Note Printing Australia, Mayor Hood was responsible for investigating and reporting the bribery payments to authorities. Despite his involvement, he was never charged for any wrongdoing and instead received contracts for printing currency as recognition of his efforts.
Prior to publicly declaring his plans to sue the creators of ChatGPT for defamation, Mayor Hood’s legal representatives issued a letter to OpenAI, urging them to modify the information and setting a 28-day deadline for the same.
Although Mayor Hood’s legal team sent the letter about 15 days ago, OpenAI has not yet replied to the request, nor has the company taken any action to correct the inaccurate information related to the bribery case.
Should OpenAI persist in disregarding the request and Mayor Hood’s legal team proceeds with the defamation case, it would result in a groundbreaking legal proceeding, with Hood being the first individual to sue an AI chatbot.
James Naughton, a partner at ‘Gordon Legal,’ Mayor Hood’s law firm, stated, “It could potentially be a significant moment as it would extend the defamation law into a new domain of IT and artificial intelligence publication.”
According to Naughton, “As an elected official, Mayor Hood’s reputation is crucial to his job, so the fact that the people in his community are able to view this material does have an impact on him.”
