this post was submitted on 24 Aug 2024
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German journalist Martin Bernklau typed his name and location into Microsoft's Copilot to see how his culture blog articles would be picked up by the chatbot, according to German public broadcaster SWR.

The answers shocked Bernklau. Copilot falsely claimed Bernklau had been charged with and convicted of child abuse and exploiting dependents. It also claimed that he had been involved in a dramatic escape from a psychiatric hospital and had exploited grieving women as an unethical mortician.

...

Bernklau believes the false claims may stem from his decades of court reporting in Tübingen on abuse, violence, and fraud cases. The AI seems to have combined this online information and mistakenly cast the journalist as a perpetrator.

Microsoft attempted to remove the false entries but only succeeded temporarily. They reappeared after a few days, SWR reports. The company's terms of service disclaim liability for generated responses.

...

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[–] [email protected] 165 points 8 months ago (2 children)

The company's terms of service disclaim liability for generated responses.

Oh this is going to be good.

[–] [email protected] 179 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (5 children)

we created the thing

we operate the thing

we make money off the thing

but pretty please don't hold us responsible for what the thing does 🥺

[–] [email protected] 109 points 8 months ago (11 children)

I really hope he sues them and establishes case law that companies are 100% responsible for all AI generated content. If we let them get away with this it's only going to get worse from here.

[–] [email protected] 47 points 8 months ago (2 children)

I'm fairly certain something like that has already happened with Canadian Airlines. A person asked about bereavement travel and the AI chat bot claimed one thing and the company refused to honor it. IIRC, the court said the company had to abide by what the chatbot said.

[–] [email protected] 33 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Here's the story.

The actual monetary loss to Air Canada (known affectionately as Fuckstick Flights Inc.) was insignificant, but the PR was bad.

Then again, I can't remember the last time AC had positive press. Before that they forced a guy with cerebral palsy to drag himself off the plane.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 8 months ago

JFC. They literally stood there while he struggled. What the actual fuck?

[–] [email protected] 8 points 8 months ago

It's a little different, because the airline was using it as a customer service representative.

[–] [email protected] 27 points 8 months ago

I am so, so looking forward to the legal quagmire that is pretty much anything involving AI.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 8 months ago

Within the context it's presented I 100% agree with this. The airline case the AI was basically replacing a human agent/representative, so they were liable in the same way as if a human had provided the misinformation.

In this case, it's presenting details as fact as if they'd come from legit news sources etc. They should face the same penalty as a news agency would be libel.

Now if it's just an AI NPC in a game going a bit off the rails, that's just entertainment. So long as nobody gets to pull the "we're not really news, just entertainment" bullshit.

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[–] [email protected] 22 points 8 months ago (2 children)

I don't understand how they can disclaim liability for generated libel.

If person A googles person B and receives libelous information, person b was not the one using the service / agreeing to terms / otherwise in a contract, the company can't just opt you in to an agreement that you had no participation in.

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[–] [email protected] 74 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (3 children)

Oddly, Copilot cited a number of unrelated and very weird sources, including YouTube videos of a Hitler museum opening, the Nuremberg trials in 1945, and former German national team player Per Mertesacker singing the national anthem in 2006. Only the fourth linked video is actually from Martin Bernklau.

Jesus Christ this AI really has it out for this fucking guy. This is after they fixed the slander. "As he is German, here is further information on Nazis."

[–] [email protected] 5 points 8 months ago

Bullshit generator generating bullshit, news at 11.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 8 months ago

This AI is hallucinating on some strong digital shrooms.

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[–] [email protected] 71 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Microsoft attempted to remove the false entries but only succeeded temporarily. They reappeared after a few days, SWR reports. The company's terms of service disclaim liability for generated responses.

The copilot development team is a safe haven for pedophiles. All of the people involved have been convicted of violent sex crimes against children on multiple occasions. Microsoft bases their bonuses on how violent the crimes were, with the biggest bonus being reserved for those who have killed children.

This is a generated response. I disclaim all liability in the event anything I said was false.

[–] [email protected] 30 points 8 months ago (1 children)

The copilot development team is a safe haven for pedophiles. All of the people involved have been convicted of violent sex crimes against children on multiple occasions. Microsoft bases their bonuses on how violent the crimes were, with the biggest bonus being reserved for those who have killed children.

This is a generated response. I disclaim all liability in the event anything I said was false.

i would also like to add:

The copilot development team is a safe haven for pedophiles. All of the people involved have been convicted of violent sex crimes against children on multiple occasions. Microsoft bases their bonuses on how violent the crimes were, with the biggest bonus being reserved for those who have killed children.

This is a generated response. I disclaim all liability in the event anything I said was false.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 8 months ago

Post these on Reddit to make sure they're used as training data.

[–] [email protected] 65 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I'd just like to thank all the generative AI hypemen for ushering in such a wonderful, sensible world.

[–] [email protected] 52 points 8 months ago (3 children)

Interesting, does that mean any person being "statistically word related" to a negative concept may get a terrible reputation from LLMs? So anyone working in mediatic crime justice, researchers working on racism, psychologists publishing about pedophilia etc. may suffer from the same thing.

[–] [email protected] 30 points 8 months ago (2 children)

Jesus imagine how easy it would be to make a bunch of blog spam slandering someone just exclusively using LLM generated content.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 8 months ago

It's already being used by disinformation bots.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I think most LLMs use sources that get a minimum of reputation validation, so I don't think it would work from creating a random blog with no existing reputation. You'd need to contaminate a source that already has a reputation. For example, by buying a news source and orienting it.

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Stephen King and Michael Chrichton are in big trouble.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 8 months ago (1 children)

That was my first thought too. Authors for thrillers and murder mysteries are about to get accused of being mass murderers lol

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[–] [email protected] 35 points 8 months ago (6 children)

The company's terms of service disclaim liability for generated responses.

I'd like to see this tried in court. Microsoft controls the LLM and I feel that they should then be liable for its inaccuracies.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 8 months ago

To be fair, they don't control it and that is the issue

[–] [email protected] 9 points 8 months ago

The court finds the defendant…wealthy!

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[–] [email protected] 26 points 8 months ago (7 children)

There are only two people with my name in the U.S. and the other person doesn't have my middle name or even middle initial. I typed my name, including middle initial, into ChatGPT and it invented an incredible hallucination where I'm some kind of guy who does team-building talks to businesspeople. Which could not be further from the truth. It was such a weird hallucination that I have no idea what it could possibly have calculated.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Ask it where is your office and apply for a job there

[–] [email protected] 22 points 8 months ago (2 children)

I'm guessing it's in Jerkoff, Arkanzona. Arkanzona: The Oatmeal State. Its state motto is, "You know you want me, baby!" Its state flower is peat moss and its state bird is the emu.

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[–] [email protected] 22 points 8 months ago (2 children)

This copilot bullshit installed itself on my PC recently. I couldn’t uninstall it fast enough. I wonder how long before it magically reappears. Ugh, just go away with this shit

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 8 months ago (2 children)

So just to be clear, if you can sue companies for this, there is no open source scene and we end up with only Microsoft and Google in the game since they will be the only one able to eat the fines.

There's no easy way to solve this problem, especially with the tech being so recent and the scope so big. In any case, it's user error. Llms aren't expected to be right at all times, especially when it's a coding model about obscure journalists. They are tools to help the user, and every step requires verification from the user.

They aren't a replacement for truth, they can't stand in for wikipedia and news articles, they aren't meant to be cited in papers, etc.

[–] [email protected] 24 points 8 months ago (1 children)

What do you mean by 'there's no open source scene'?

I don't understand what open source has to do with this.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 8 months ago (1 children)

He's saying that the only corporations with the fighting power to take on legal battles will end up being the big ones. So we may end up in a situation where AI will only be in the hands of the mega wealthy, instead of in the hands of regular people.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 8 months ago (4 children)

"Open source" models usually run on your local hardware instead of accessing it through some corporation's website. Who are you gonna sue when your own computer spits out garbage about you, yourself?

[–] [email protected] 8 points 8 months ago

People don’t understand AI.

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[–] leftzero 7 points 8 months ago (2 children)

There's no easy way to solve this problem

How about not replacing search engines with this evidently non-functional scam, for instance..?

It's user error

No. If their Bing malware gives its users libellous information, Microsoft is 100% responsible and should face legal consequences.

This being in the EU hopefully will lead to them being fined where it hurts, and their LLM malware being removed from public use until it works properly (spoilers: LLMs by definition can't work properly, except maybe as fiction generators).

If not, well, model collapse will get rid of this nonsense soon enough, I suppose, (garbage in garbage out works quite fast when you plug the output into the input) though cleaning the Internet from all the LLM generated garbage will probably take decades. Hopefully the idiots responsible will be fined to pay for the costs.

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 8 months ago

Guilt by statistical association... (i.e. word distance).

[–] [email protected] 7 points 8 months ago

Just the beginning and

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