The generative artificial intelligence strikes againone might say: they defamed an innocent man accusing him of being a sexual predator, complete with indirect complicity on the part of Microsoft. This is the classic hallucination that affects these highly advanced language models, but it is particularly serious considering the implications of the case.
The defamation was discovered by a journalist from the New York Times who, analyzing the AI news site BNN Breaking, discovered an article in which host Dave Fanning was accused of being on trial for sexual predatory behavior. The presenter involved in the process was not actually him, but the AI indicated him as such thus introducing him to the site’s readers.
When to stop
To add insult to injury, Microsoft did it. More precisely, its news aggregator MSN, which promoted the fake news, making it reach a much wider audience than that of the site in question. After a few hours it was removed, but in the meantime the damage had been done.
It should be underlined that Microsoft is involved at the forefront of the artificial intelligence business, with billions of investments in the field. So he has every interest to promote certain contents, without controlling them.
Fanning’s response was immediatewith BNN Breaking and Microsoft suing him for defamation, given the damage caused to his reputation.
The Redmond company is already under scrutiny for the many malicious contents generated by its Copilot bot. This incident will certainly not do any good for the reputation of these technologies, which are already not well regarded by many observers.
#journalist #accused #innocent #man #sexual #predator #Microsoft #trial
