this post was submitted on 15 Feb 2024
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Air Canada's chatbot gave a B.C. man the wrong information. Now, the airline has to pay for the mistake (bc.ctvnews.ca)
submitted 8 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
43 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Jake Moffatt was booking a flight to Toronto and asked the bot about the airline's bereavement rates – reduced fares provided in the event someone needs to travel due to the death of an immediate family member.

Moffatt said he was told that these fares could be claimed retroactively by completing a refund application within 90 days of the date the ticket was issued, and submitted a screenshot of his conversation with the bot as evidence supporting this claim.

The airline refused the refund because it said its policy was that bereavement fare could not, in fact, be claimed retroactively.

Air Canada argued that it could not be held liable for information provided by the bot.

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[–] [email protected] 62 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (2 children)

Air Canada argued that it could not be held liable for information provided by the bot

Lol. Of course they'd say that. Perhaps hire people? Or would they also argue they couldn't be held liable for their mistakes and misinformation?

[–] [email protected] 16 points 8 months ago

They're trying to cheap out on real human support personnel - Chat bots are clearly not a suitable replacement.

Fuck'em.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 8 months ago (3 children)

If they get the precedent they are not responsible for what the AI chat bot says, then this goes for any chat box on any site and they all become worthless. Any chat bot gets a disclaimer basically saying "this thing is a dirty lier and nothing it says matters." People will start to call human customer service to confirm what the chat bot said and the savings in employee costs are gone.

Seems a bad long term strategy.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 8 months ago

CS will be a multi modal chatbot too, just with a voice. I don’t think they want any human support at all. To a business, the only reason overhead exists is to cut it, and support has always been overhead.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 8 months ago

Seems a bad long term strategy.

It's not a long term strategy. The person who made this decision is thinking about their quarterly or yearly bonus. By the time the problems hit, they've long since cashed out.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 8 months ago

Way, way fewer people will call CS than will just ignore the warning.

Once we become acclimated to things like this, we stop complaining, and let the greedy fuckers win.