OpenAI LLC was unable to quickly end a defamation lawsuit from a conservative radio host in Georgia who alleged the company’s AI chatbot ChatGPT made false claims that he embezzled money from a gun-rights organization.
Judge Tracie Cason of the Gwinnett County Superior Court in Georgia denied OpenAI’s motion to dismiss in a one-page order on Jan. 11, but didn’t provide a reason for the decision.
The first-of-its-kind defamation suit against a generative AI product is set to test the legal limits of the new technology, which is known to produce false outputs known as “hallucinations.”
OpenAI didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Mark Walters, host of Armed America Radio, claimed in his lawsuit that ChatGPT produced the text of a made-up legal complaint accusing him of embezzling money from the Second Amendment Foundation. Walters said he has never been accused of embezzlement or worked for the group.
The ChatGPT output was provided to Fred Riehl, the editor of a gun publication who was using the chatbot to research a real life legal case. Riehl sent the fake complaint to Walters.
OpenAI had transferred the case to federal court last summer, but the district court judge overseeing the case sent it back after OpenAI declined to provide additional details about the company’s membership structure.
ChatGPT provides a number of warnings about its content, including a disclaimer about the bot’s production of inaccurate information, the company argued in its motion to dismiss. ChatGPT’s terms to use state that users must “verify” and “take ultimate responsibility” for the content they decide to publish.
OpenAI also argued that no defamation occurred because Riehl, who’d input specific content parameters into the chatbot, acknowledged in his transcript with ChatGPT that he understood the output he’d solicited was false.
“Mr. Riehl ignored ChatGPT’s warnings that it could not read, much less summarize, the relevant content, generating a statement he knew to be false and never believed to the defamation of anyone,” OpenAI’s motion said.
Walters argued in response that OpenAI couldn’t prove with certainty that Riehl didn’t believe the output’s veracity.
John Monroe Law PC represents Walters. DLA Piper LLP represents OpenAI.
The case is Walters v. OpenAI LLC, Ga. Super. Ct., No. 23-A-04860-2, 1/11/24.
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