As a counterpoint to this argument, the reason we have libel/slander laws is that people hear something and don't check if they're factual.
If I say, "danmaz74 eats babies," some people are going to believe it and not check that you don't eat babies. That's the problem with saying false things about people. Likewise, if ChatGPT says false things about people, some people will believe those false things - even if they don't publish anything or repeat them. Those false beliefs then have repercussions.
Section 230 doesn't eliminate libel. It just notes that the libel is being done by the person writing the information - ie. the user who posts it rather than the site that is merely hosting the information. It notes that the user is self-publishing the information.
In this case, ChatGPT is publishing this "information" itself. If we hold that ChatGPT isn't responsible for what they publish, we say that no one is liable for this defamation. That's not what Section 230 does. Section 230 just notes who the publisher is - the user who wrote the information. We are determining who is the person doing the action. We could require sites to check everything. We could require your ISP to inspect all packets to make sure they don't contain libel. We could require your electric company to make sure that devices connected to their network aren't being used to send/receive libelous things. We don't because that would be a bit absurd and because the actual fault lies with a human being. In the case of ChatGPT, it seems like we still need to be identifying a culprit.
Let's say that I start auto-generating news articles. I don't check them (I don't even look at them) before they are published on my site. This is the same mechanic as ChatGPT - it's just auto-generated stuff. Therefore, I'm not liable under your definition. It's up to the readers of my site to decide to check this auto-generated stuff.
I agree that ChatGPT can be a useful tool. At the same time, I'm not sure we want to create a system where people can absolve themselves of liability by auto-generating stuff. Even without intent, one can be guilty of libel. Maybe the answer is that ChatGPT should be able to defend itself by showing what sources caused that generation and that the generation was reasonable. For example, a newspaper is expected to carefully check multiple reasonable sources. If ChatGPT can cite multiple reasonable sources (and it has interpreted those sources correctly), then the blame can be those sources. If ChatGPT cannot, then the blame might be on ChatGPT.
As you note, ChatGPT can be useful - and the more useful it gets, the more people will accept its statements as true. I think simply saying "as long as you know what they are," feels like someone trying to say both things - they're incredibly useful and completely trash! It's like when a company tells shareholders "we have a stranglehold on the market" and then tells the government "we have so much competition we're struggling to survive." You can't have both. You can be a novelty tool that you and everyone else thinks of as a joke or you can have a serious tool where libel is a serious issue. The Onion can publish satire because it's a satire site. The NYTimes can't publish something that sounds like a serious NYTimes article and then claim, if sued, that it was actually a satire article and that 100% of readers just read it as serious when it was meant as satire.
If a significant part of our future starts coming from these language models, we will have to ensure a certain standard of care around what they say.
> The Onion can publish satire because it's a satire site. The NYTimes can't publish something that sounds like a serious NYTimes article and then claim, if sued, that it was actually a satire article and that 100% of readers just read it as serious when it was meant as satire.
My point is that ChatGPT doesn't "publish" anything; it's not a publication. It's a language model trained on text, which produces text in response to one or more prompts. Using that text is completely up to the user, and it should never be used as a source of facts.
Being able to summarize facts finding specific sources looks like a completely different kind of tool to me, one which would be super useful, but not at all what a LLM in itself is about.
How does this not become AI powered citogenesis? [0]
Saying that it is solely the user's misuse of the tool which is the problem minimizes how easy and how damaging the misuse is. Eventually you hit the situation where everyone is making false claims because transitively down the graph a few users were using an LLM that made baseless defaming statements and others cite those publications as evidence for the defamation.
The creators of generative models need to have some skin in the game around the correctness of statements made about real people. Reputational damage cannot be an externality for them. The current AI moment is basking in the glory of how generally right generated text is, when that text is wrong it needs to be their problem too.
> The creators of generative models need to have some skin in the game around the correctness of statements made about real people.
Only insofar as they claim that the statements generated by a model should be understood to be factual- and in my experience, not only have I not seen any such claims, I've seen vigorous insistence in the *opposite* direction: that LLM output should *not* be considered factual. OpenAI sticks this disclaimer right underneath their input box: "ChatGPT may produce inaccurate information about people, places, or facts".
> Eventually you hit the situation where everyone is making false claims because transitively down the graph a few users were using an LLM that made baseless defaming statements and others cite those publications as evidence for the defamation.
This is no different from any other gossip chain, except for the fact that the originators used a tool to generate the initial gossip.
> OpenAI sticks this disclaimer right underneath their input box
This is a legal fig leaf - the reason the AI hype cycle is so high is that it is so often correct. We're seeing it pass medical licensure exams, bar exams, engineering interviews, and so on. Those are all cheered. When it fails we can't just say "you're holding it wrong".
> except for the fact that the originators used a tool to generate the initial gossip.
Scale is a very significant difference. If the tool can generate untold mountains of unique gossip - there is a great need to have some way to control it, and a significant share of responsibility should be on the tool creator. Why should the rest of society have to clean up this mess?
There are significant parallels in this discussion with the argument that guns don't kill people, people kill people statement. Which is also a gross oversimplification of a complex problem.
> When it fails we can't just say "you're holding it wrong".
a better analogy would be tossing a screwdriver off the top of a tall building and then claiming screwdrivers are dangerous because look at how you managed to dangerously distribute one into a windshield when you got your hands on it
Both suggest that this is a real area of concern. Folks have gotten complacent that Section 230 protects platform providers, but it is not clear that the protection extends to outputs from generative models, indeed one of the Supreme Court Justices implied that it would not in oral arguments for one of the recent Section 230 cases.
If I say, "danmaz74 eats babies," some people are going to believe it and not check that you don't eat babies. That's the problem with saying false things about people. Likewise, if ChatGPT says false things about people, some people will believe those false things - even if they don't publish anything or repeat them. Those false beliefs then have repercussions.
Section 230 doesn't eliminate libel. It just notes that the libel is being done by the person writing the information - ie. the user who posts it rather than the site that is merely hosting the information. It notes that the user is self-publishing the information.
In this case, ChatGPT is publishing this "information" itself. If we hold that ChatGPT isn't responsible for what they publish, we say that no one is liable for this defamation. That's not what Section 230 does. Section 230 just notes who the publisher is - the user who wrote the information. We are determining who is the person doing the action. We could require sites to check everything. We could require your ISP to inspect all packets to make sure they don't contain libel. We could require your electric company to make sure that devices connected to their network aren't being used to send/receive libelous things. We don't because that would be a bit absurd and because the actual fault lies with a human being. In the case of ChatGPT, it seems like we still need to be identifying a culprit.
Let's say that I start auto-generating news articles. I don't check them (I don't even look at them) before they are published on my site. This is the same mechanic as ChatGPT - it's just auto-generated stuff. Therefore, I'm not liable under your definition. It's up to the readers of my site to decide to check this auto-generated stuff.
I agree that ChatGPT can be a useful tool. At the same time, I'm not sure we want to create a system where people can absolve themselves of liability by auto-generating stuff. Even without intent, one can be guilty of libel. Maybe the answer is that ChatGPT should be able to defend itself by showing what sources caused that generation and that the generation was reasonable. For example, a newspaper is expected to carefully check multiple reasonable sources. If ChatGPT can cite multiple reasonable sources (and it has interpreted those sources correctly), then the blame can be those sources. If ChatGPT cannot, then the blame might be on ChatGPT.
As you note, ChatGPT can be useful - and the more useful it gets, the more people will accept its statements as true. I think simply saying "as long as you know what they are," feels like someone trying to say both things - they're incredibly useful and completely trash! It's like when a company tells shareholders "we have a stranglehold on the market" and then tells the government "we have so much competition we're struggling to survive." You can't have both. You can be a novelty tool that you and everyone else thinks of as a joke or you can have a serious tool where libel is a serious issue. The Onion can publish satire because it's a satire site. The NYTimes can't publish something that sounds like a serious NYTimes article and then claim, if sued, that it was actually a satire article and that 100% of readers just read it as serious when it was meant as satire.
If a significant part of our future starts coming from these language models, we will have to ensure a certain standard of care around what they say.