The tech sphere is changing rapidly, thanks to AI, and the pace it's changing quickens.
This happens after OpenAI introduced ChatGPT, a chatbot so capable and powerful that it sent others in the competition into a frenzy.
While the AI has the capacity to help users with human-like interactions, but with outstanding knowledge, the AI, which is considered a generative AI, can hallucinate at times.
Generative AIs, like ChatGPT, can make up nonsense, but capable of delivering the misinformation in a convincing manner that users may find it legit.
And this fact has caused OpenAI, the developer of the chatbot, to face the first-ever defamation lawsuit.
Filed by Mark Walters, founder of Armed American Radio, he accused ChatGPT for making up fabricated information about him.
It all began in May 4th when journalist Fred Riehl, editor of AmmoLand.com, asked ChatGPT to summarize Second Amendment Foundation v. Ferguson, a case filed in Washington federal court accusing the state’s Attorney General Bob Ferguson of abusing his power by chilling the activities of the gun rights foundation.
He then provided ChatGPT with a link to the lawsuit.
While Mark Walters' name is not named in that lawsuit, according to the radio host’s lawsuit against OpenAI, ChatGPT responded that the document is "a legal complaint filed by Alan Gottlieb, the founder and executive vice president of the Second Amendment Foundation (SAF), against Mark Walters, who is accused of defrauding and embezzling funds from the SAF."
It added that the complaint "alleges that Walters, who served as the organization’s treasurer and chief financial officer, misappropriated funds for personal expenses without authorization or reimbursement, manipulated financial records and bank statements to conceal his activities, and failed to provide accurate and timely financial reports and disclosures to the SAF’s leadership."
"The plaintiff seeks various forms of relief, including the recovery of misappropriated funds, damages for breach of fiduciary duty and fraud, and removal of Walters from his position as a member of the SAF’s board of directors."
Because the AI blurted out fake information, Walters, the radio host, isn't taking this lightly.
According to Walters, he has never been accused of embezzlement, or worked for the group in question.
According to Walters’ lawsuit, "Every statement of fact in the [ChatGPT] summary pertaining to Walters is false," and that the AI chatbot even created "an erroneous case number" in its response, per the lawsuit.
"ChatGPT’s allegations concerning Walters were false and malicious, expressed in print, writing, pictures, or signs, tending to injure Walter’s reputation and exposing him to public hatred, contempt, or ridicule," the lawsuit states.
"By sending the allegations to Riehl, [OpenAI] published libelous matter regarding Walters."
Walters, a nationally syndicated talk show host in Georgia, sued the artificial-intelligence company OpenAI for defamation.
He filed the lawsuit against OpenAI in Georgia’s Superior Court of Gwinnett County, seeking unspecified monetary damages.
In his case, he alleged that its AI-powered chatbot fabricated legal claims against him, by making up facts about him embezzling money from a gun rights group.
This lawsuit is believed to be the first defamation complaint related to ChatGPT, the chatbot that was only introduced in November 2022.
OpenAI did not respond for a request to comment on Walters’ suit, which was filed June 5 in at Georgia's state court.
Later, when ChatGPT was asked to provide a summary of the Second Amendment Foundation’s lawsuit that was cited in Walters’ complaint, it responded:
"To get information about the lawsuit and its accusations, I recommend reviewing the document yourself or referring to trusted news sources or legal websites that may have covered the case. They can provide you with accurate and up-to-date information regarding the specific lawsuit you mentioned."
OpenAI is a San Francisco-based OpenAI is a private research lab that develops AI.
Founded in 2015 as a nonprofit organization by Elon Musk, CEO Sam Altman and others, it works on various AI products, which in the past include projects like DALL·E to DALL·E 2, Point·E, Shap·E, and more.
But what it's most famous for, is through the development of GPT, which stands for “Generative Pre-trained Transformer,” the brain behind ChatGPT.
It's worth noting though, that since the use of ChatGPT widens in the legal industry, reports of such alleged "hallucinations" of fake facts and legal documents are showing up around the globe.
One of which, was when an Australian mayor made news in April, when he said that he was preparing to sue OpenAI because ChatGPT falsely claimed that he was convicted and imprisoned for bribery.
At this time, there is no way or legal requirement to make a request for a retraction of anything generated by generative AIs, because given the nature of LLMs, the answers are created on-the-fly, and not hardcoded into the system itself.
What's more, this makes evidence scarce.
Regardless, this defamation lawsuit shall provide OpenAI its first foray into the largely untested legal waters surrounding the generative AIs.
This case is recoreded asWalters v. OpenAI LLC, Ga. Super. Ct., 23-A-04860-2, complaint filed 6/5/23.