A mayor from Australia claimed he would file a lawsuit because of the misleading information advanced chatbot ChatGPT presented.
Mayor of Hepburn Shire Council Brian Hood claims a tool owned by OpenAI falsely claimed he was jailed for bribery while employed by a division of Australia's largest bank.
In reality, Mr. Hood was a tip-off source who was never indicted.
The first official step in a defamation lawsuit in Australia was delivered by his attorneys to OpenAI: a concerns notice.
Following a 28-day response period, OpenAI must address the concerns raised in the notice; otherwise, Mr. Hood may file a lawsuit against the business in accordance with Australian law.
If he proceeds with the lawsuit, it would be the first time in the public eye that OpenAI has been sued for defamation regarding ChatGPT-produced content.
Since ChatGPT's debut in November 2022, millions of individuals have utilised it.
Using the internet as it was in 2021 as its database, it can respond to queries in language that is natural and human-like and can imitate different writing styles. In February 2023, it was added to Bing after Microsoft invested billions in it.
False accusations
A disclaimer alerting users that the content produced by ChatGPT may contain "inaccurate information about people, places, or facts" is displayed when they use the service.
Additionally, OpenAI notes that one drawback of the tool is that it "occasionally writes plausible-sounding but incorrect or nonsensical answers."
Mr. Hood served as the corporate secretary for the Reserve Bank of Australia subsidiary Notes Printing Australia in 2005.
He revealed to journalists and government representatives that bribery was occurring at the organisation connected to Securency, a company that the bank partially owned.
In 2010, police stormed Securency, which resulted in arrests and prison terms across the globe. Mr. Hood, who was not among those detained, expressed his "horror" at what ChatGPT was informing people.
"I was stunned at first that it was so incorrect," he stated to Australian broadcaster ABC News. "It's one thing to get something a little bit wrong, it's entirely something else to be accusing someone of being a criminal and having served jail time when the truth is the exact opposite.
"I think this is a pretty stark wake-up call. The system is portrayed as being credible and informative and authoritative, and it's obviously not."