An Australian regional mayor, Brian Hood, has threatened to sue OpenAI for falsely claiming that the mayor has served time in prison for a bribery case. This move has made him the world’s first person to file a case against an AI product; his lawyers said they have sent a letter of concern to ChatGPT and gave OpenAI 28 days to fix the errors.
Brian Hood – The Bribery Scandal
Brian worked for a subsidiary of the Reserve Bank of Australia – Note Printing Australia – in the early 2000s. He was the person who notified authorities about the payment of bribes to foreign officials to win currency printing contracts and was never charged with a crime. However, ChatGPT had falsely named him as a guilty party in a foreign bribery scandal hence sabotaging his character.
James Naughton, a partner at Hood’s law firm Gordon Legal, said; “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,” “He’s an elected official, his reputation is central to his role,” he further added.
Damages Payouts
The Australian damages payout is usually capped at around $400,000 but in this case, it is not clear how many people have accessed the wrong information. According to Naughton, the nature of the defamatory statements was serious enough that he may claim more than $200,000.
Also read: Italy Temporarily Bans ChatGPT Over Data Breach Concerns
