There is a sensible decision from the Civil Resolution Tribunal in British Columbia holding Air Canada responsible for its “customer service” chatbot (https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2024/02/air-canada-must-honor-refund-policy-invented-by-airlines-chatbot). My position on “artificial intelligence” technology is:
AI that searches a website to find you the correct information: good, helpful!
AI that is presented as authoritative despite making shit up: obviously bad!
The tribunal member didn’t even require an oral hearing for this nonsense. The decision itself is worth reading (https://www.canlii.org/en/bc/bccrt/doc/2024/2024bccrt149/2024bccrt149.html), but here are my favourite excerpts:
Understatement at para. 22: On February 8, an Air Canada representative responded and admitted the chatbot had provided “misleading words.”
Helping the applicant at para. 24: While [the applicant] does not use the words specifically, by saying they relied on Air Canada’s chatbot, I find they are alleging negligent misrepresentation. Negligent misrepresentation can arise when a seller does not exercise reasonable care to ensure its representations are accurate and not misleading.
Chastising Air Canada at para. 27: It should be obvious to Air Canada that it is responsible for all the information on its website. It makes no difference whether the information comes from a static page or a chatbot.
Chastising Air Canada at para. 31: To the extent Air Canada argues it is not liable due to certain terms or conditions of its tariff, I note it did not provide a copy of the relevant portion of the tariff. … Air Canada is a sophisticated litigant that should know it is not enough in a legal process to assert that a contract says something without actually providing the contract. … It did not, so it has not proven a contractual defence.
One final dig at the “sophisticated litigant” at para. 35: In its boilerplate Dispute Response, Air Canada denies “each and every” one of Mr. Moffatt’s allegations generally. However, it did not provide any evidence to the contrary.
I hope the precedent that entities are responsible for the garbage generated by their chatbots spreads. Customers should be able to rely on the information provided by customer service agents, whatever form that information takes.