Australian mayor likely to sue ChatGPT developer OpenAI over false claims

A mayor in Australia has threatened to sue ChatGPT developer OpenAI, for making false claims that he had served time in prison on bribery charges, in what would be the first defamation lawsuit against the artificial intelligence platform.

Brian Hood, the mayor of Hepburn Shire asked OpenAI to correct the information reflected by the AI platform claiming that he was concerned about his reputation after some people asked him about the claims made by ChatGPT.

The AI platform claimed that he was guilty in the foreign bribery scandal involving a subsidiary of the Reserve Bank of Australia in the early 2000s.

According to Hood's lawyers, he was working for the subsidiary of the bank, Note Printing Australia, and was the individual who reported the payment of bribes to foreign officials to secure currency printing contracts. The mayor was never charged with any criminal offense.

The lawyers further mentioned that they had sent a letter of concern to OpenAI, the owner of ChatGPT, on March 21.

The letter gave OpenAI 28 days to fix the erroneous information about their client, failing which they could face a legal suit for defamation.

"It would potentially be a landmark moment in the sense that it's applying this defamation law to a new area of artificial intelligence and publication in the IT space," James Naughton, a partner at Hood's law firm Gordon Legal, reports news agency Reuters.

"He's an elected official, his reputation is central to his role," Naughton said.

OpenAI, which is based in San Francisco, had not yet responded to Hood’s legal letter, the lawyers said.

If the lawsuit is filed, it will become the first such legal case against ChatGPT which has become hugely popular since its launch. Microsoft Corp integrated ChatGPT into its search engine Bing in February.

A few countries have decided to ban the AI platform over potential privacy and security concerns.