Australian mayor readies world’s first defamation lawsuit over ChatGPT content

A mayor in Australia is considering suing OpenAI over false claims made by ChatGPT that he had served time in prison for bribery. Brian Hood, who was elected mayor of Hepburn Shire last November, had his reputation damaged when members of the public told him that ChatGPT had falsely named him as a guilty party in a foreign bribery scandal involving a subsidiary of the Reserve Bank of Australia in the early 2000s. Hood did work for the subsidiary, Note Printing Australia, but was the person who notified authorities about payment of bribes to foreign officials to win currency printing contracts and was never charged with a crime. Lawyers representing him sent a letter of concern to ChatGPT owner OpenAI on March 21, which gave OpenAI 28 days to fix the errors about their client or face a possible defamation lawsuit. OpenAI, which is based in San Francisco, has not yet responded to Hood’s legal letter. If Hood sues, it would likely be the first time a person has sued the owner of ChatGPT for claims made by the automated language product. Microsoft Corp. integrated ChatGPT into its search engine Bing in February.

Sources: CGTN