Air Canada is responsible for chatbot's mistake: B.C. tribunal
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Re: Air Canada is responsible for chatbot's mistake: B.C. tribunal
#2So a lawsuit vector exists against AI-enabled lack of care for customers.
Would be interesting to see if a cottage industry can open up around prompting inaccurate information from company AI info to reap via lawsuits.
Re: Air Canada is responsible for chatbot's mistake: B.C. tribunal
#3The penalty for arguing they are not responsible for the “magic chatbot” telling lies to customers should be much more severe.
Re: Air Canada is responsible for chatbot's mistake: B.C. tribunal
#4So a lawsuit vector exists against AI-enabled lack of care for customers. Would be interesting to see if a cottage industry can open up around prompting inaccurate information from company AI info to reap via lawsuits.
That seems like a stretch based on this specific case, given that the only award was explicit damages (ie, a refund of funds already spent). No one ended up “ahead” here.
Re: Air Canada is responsible for chatbot's mistake: B.C. tribunal
#5I wonder whether the bot hallucinated the wrong information or whether the policy changed and the bot simply wasn't updated / retrained. The latter seems more likely but less interesting, akin to information on a boring HTML page getting overlooked during a site update.
Re: Air Canada is responsible for chatbot's mistake: B.C. tribunal
#6Where's the chatbot accessible from? Can't find it. I assume it was some old-school KB query chatbot not an LLM? Date says Nov 2022 and LLMs hadn't become quite as popular at that time yet. They have to obviously be responsible. What a nonsensical claim.
Re: Air Canada is responsible for chatbot's mistake: B.C. tribunal
#7> Air Canada, for its part, argued that it could not be held liable for information provided by the bot.
> "In effect, Air Canada suggests the chatbot is a separate legal entity that is responsible for its own actions. This is a remarkable submission. While a chatbot has an interactive component, it is still just a part of Air Canada’s website," Rivers wrote.
This could be an article on The Onion. Unfortunately, I suspect this won't be the last time companies try to weasel their way out of the consequences of how they use AI in relation to their customers (i.e., us)
Re: Air Canada is responsible for chatbot's mistake: B.C. tribunal
#8The penalty for arguing they are not responsible for the “magic chatbot” telling lies to customers should be much more severe.
It would've been if it were a lawsuit, but this was a tribunal hearing and recompense is limited to damages, that is, the amount the claimant was out of pocket.
I'd love to stick it to Air Canada too, but Canada is (hopefully) less litigious than the US.
Re: Air Canada is responsible for chatbot's mistake: B.C. tribunal
#9> Air Canada, for its part, argued that it could not be held liable for information provided by the bot. > "In effect, Air Canada suggests the chatbot is a separate legal entity that is responsible for its own actions. This is a remarkable submission. While a chatbot has an interactive component, it is still just a part of Air Canada’s website," Rivers wrote. This could be an article on The Onion. Unfortunately, I su…
Indeed interesting, even in alternative reality if their argument is valid. They still "hired" the chatbot to provide service on their behalf and they are liable for it. Not lawyer, just spark of common sense ?
Re: Air Canada is responsible for chatbot's mistake: B.C. tribunal
#10Where's the chatbot accessible from? Can't find it. I assume it was some old-school KB query chatbot not an LLM? Date says Nov 2022 and LLMs hadn't become quite as popular at that time yet. They have to obviously be responsible. What a nonsensical claim.
What difference does it make? If it happened today with an LLM the outcome should be the same.