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Air Canada must pay damages after chatbot lies to grieving passenger about discount | Airline tried arguing virtual assistant was solely responsible for its own actions (www.theregister.com)

submitted 9 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Air Canada must pay damages after chatbot lies to grieving passenger about discount | Airline tried arguing virtual assistant was solely responsible for its own actions::Airline tried arguing virtual assistant was solely responsible for its own actions

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[–] [email protected] 127 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Shame on Air Canada for even fighting it.

I'm glad for this ruling. We need to set a legal precedent that chatbots act on behalf of the company. And if businesses try to claim that chatbots sometimes make mistakes then too bad - so do human agents, and when this happens in this customer's favour it needs to be honoured.

Companies want to use AI to supplement and replace human agents, but without any of the legal consequences of real people. We cannot let them have their cake and eat it at the same time.

[–] [email protected] 28 points 9 months ago (1 children)

If it was a human agent, surely they would still liable?

They're an agent of the company. They're acting on behalf of the company, in accordance to their policy and procedures. It then becomes a training issue if they were providing incorrect information?

[–] [email protected] 33 points 9 months ago

Yes, if it was a human agent they would certainly be liable for the mistake, and the law very much already recognises that.

That's my whole point here; the company should be equally liable for the behaviour of an AI agent as they are for the behaviour of a human agent when it gives plausible but wrong information.