Libelled by the bot: reputation, defamation and AI

But the original drafters of the law, Oregon Democratic Senator Ron Wyden, and former Rep. Chris Cox, a California Republican, are of the view that chatbot creators would not be able to avail themselves of the protection. "To be entitled to immunity," Cox suggested to The Washington Post, "a provider of an interactive computer service must not have contributed to the creation or development of the content at issue."

When Ars Technica attempted to replicate the various mistakes supposedly generated by ChatGPT, they came up short. Ditto the BBC. This might suggest that the generated errors have been corrected. But over the next few weeks, if not months, expect a number of thick, all-covering disclaimers to ensure that AI bots such as ChatGPT are not subject to liability.

As a matter of fact, ChatGPT already has one: "Given the probabilistic nature of machine learning, use of our Services may in some situations result in incorrect Output that does not accurately reflect real people, places, or facts. You should evaluate the accuracy of any Output as appropriate for your use case, including by using human review of the Output." Whether this satisfies technologically illiterate courts remains to be seen.