OpenAI, the company that develops the ChatGpt chatbot, could be sued for defamation.
Artificial intelligence has in fact associated the new mayor of Hepburn Shire, a town north-west of Melbourne, with a prison sentence for corruption, which never occurred.
Brian Hood was alerted by his fellow citizens, who used the chatbot to find out more about him.
The AI then linked the new mayor to an early 2000s corruption scandal involving a branch of the Reserve Bank of Australia.
Brian Hood, as reported by Reuters, actually worked for a Reserve Bank branch, Note Printing Australia, uncovering a ring of bribes to foreign officials for the award of some supply contracts.
He has never been charged with any crime.
The mayor has mandated his lawyer to send a letter to OpenAI, asking to correct the error and eliminate the so-called 'hallucination', i.e. the incorrect answer provided by ChatGpt.
To date, the organization has not responded to a March 21 request from Hood's attorney.
If the lawsuit were to go ahead, it would be the first time that a company has to answer for facts 'committed' by its artificial intelligence.
"It would potentially be a historic moment, as defamation law would apply to a new area of artificial intelligence," James Naughton, a partner at Hood's law firm Gordon Legal, told Reuters.
"He's an elected official, reputation is critical to his role.
