Language models generate text based on statistical probabilities. This led to serious false accusations against a veteran court reporter by Microsoft's Copilot.

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.

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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.

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  • phx
    4·
    19 days ago

    Or until it starts costing a fuckton of money. I hope a lawsuit by this individual is the start of that

    • Laborer3652@reddthat.comEnglish
      1·
      19 days ago

      Nah probably not. They’ll hide behind that ToS and settle any claims out of court of through forced arbitration. Microsoft has an ungodly amount of legal power behind it and its very difficult to move against them legally. I’m positive they’ll be able to contain this.