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.

  • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    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.

    • Eranziel@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      My guess is that your name is so poorly represented in the training data that it just picked the most common kind of job history that is represented.

      • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        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.

  • ✺roguetrick✺@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    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.”

  • Burninator05@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    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.

  • Grimy@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    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.

    • robsuto@lemmy.ml
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      3 months ago

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

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

  • Optional@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

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

  • ngwoo@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    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.

    • dubious@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      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.