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Air Canada is responsible for chatbot's mistake: B.C. tribunal

bc.ctvnews.ca

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Re: Air Canada is responsible for chatbot's mistake: B.C. tribunal

#241

Post by mc32 »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #183
Drakim wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That does make sense, but on the flipside, let's say that they start advertising discounts on TV, but when people try to pay the reduced rate they say "according to our ToS that TV ad was not authorized to lower the price". Obviously that wouldn't fly. So why would it fly with the AI chatbot's advertising discounts?

You'd normally expect a TV ad to be authorized to make offers. You wouldn't normally expect an AI chatbot to be authorized to make offers. Its purpose is to try to answer common questions and it has been widely covered in popular media that they hallucinate etc.

If it was approved by the company, yes. But you wouldn't want Braniff Airlines to put out an ad for SouthWest Airlines advertising rock bottom lifetime tickets and have those be valid...

Re: Air Canada is responsible for chatbot's mistake: B.C. tribunal

#242

Post by londons_explore »

ceejayoz wrote: post #236
beambot wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Recall when the Chevy dealership's chatbot agreed to sell a Chevy Tahoe for $1... https://www.businessinsider.com/car-dealership-chevrolet-cha...

If Chevy dealerships had $1 bereavement Chevy Tahoes as a normal business practice, I think that one would've gone the other way. In the Air Canada case, it was a clear good-faith effort to understand the rules of a fare he was legitimately entitled to.

I think eventually courts will decide that whatever a chatbot or employee says while working for the company is binding on the company, as long as there was no malicious intent on either the part of the employee or the customer.

Re: Air Canada is responsible for chatbot's mistake: B.C. tribunal

#244

Post by bhaney »

ndjshe3838 wrote: post #226

I hate the whole attitude the industry has towards AI models, it just seems so sloppy compared to software of the past It’s like “yeah we don’t really know what it’s going to do and it might screw up but whatever just launch it” Really surprised me that so many companies are willing to jump into LLMs without any guarantee that the output won’t be something completely insane

Too much money on the line to bother with due diligence

Re: Air Canada is responsible for chatbot's mistake: B.C. tribunal

#245

Post by jlarocco »

ceejayoz wrote: post #218
brentm wrote: post #216

I just can't believe it took a lawsuit to get an airline to fork over a few hundred bucks on something that was obviously their fault.

Yeah; this should've been well within some second-tier customer service manager's discretionary refund budget. Instead they've got a precedent-setting ruling that makes the chatbot a huge liability.

> Instead they've got a precedent-setting ruling that makes the chatbot a huge liability.

Good.

Re: Air Canada is responsible for chatbot's mistake: B.C. tribunal

#246

Post by ado__dev »

If I am trying to interact with a company and they direct me to their chatbot, I expect that chatbot to provide me with accurate answers 100% of the time (or to say it can't help me in the event that I ask a question that it's not meant to solve, and connect me to a representative who can).

If I have to double-triple check elsewhere to make sure that the chatbot is correct, or if anything the chatbot tells me is non-binding, then what's the point of using the chat bot in the first place? If you can't trust it 99% of the time, or if the company says "use this, but nothing it says should be taken as fact", then why would i waste my time?

If a company is going to provide a tool, they should take responsibility for that tool.

Re: Air Canada is responsible for chatbot's mistake: B.C. tribunal

#248

Post by labrador »

If I ran their large multi-page website I could search over it for every occurence of "bereavement fare" to find out exactly what we are telling people and check it for accuracy. I can't do that with a LLM afaik. I can't ask it "tell me every thing you can say about "bereavement fare". LLM's are not inspectable like that. LLMs are tuned and output filtered, but can this catch all errors?

Re: Air Canada is responsible for chatbot's mistake: B.C. tribunal

#249

Post by cqqxo4zV46cp »

londons_explore wrote: post #242
ceejayoz wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If Chevy dealerships had $1 bereavement Chevy Tahoes as a normal business practice, I think that one would've gone the other way. In the Air Canada case, it was a clear good-faith effort to understand the rules of a fare he was legitimately entitled to.

I think eventually courts will decide that whatever a chatbot or employee says while working for the company is binding on the company, as long as there was no malicious intent on either the part of the employee or the customer.

Australian consumer law basically already does this (for employees) esp. in the context of e.g. assuring fitness for purpose etc.

Re: Air Canada is responsible for chatbot's mistake: B.C. tribunal

#250

Post by l33t7332273 »

ndjshe3838 wrote: post #226

I hate the whole attitude the industry has towards AI models, it just seems so sloppy compared to software of the past It’s like “yeah we don’t really know what it’s going to do and it might screw up but whatever just launch it” Really surprised me that so many companies are willing to jump into LLMs without any guarantee that the output won’t be something completely insane

It’s because despite what people are afraid of, these systems are very good at not screwing up with just a few minor controls layered on top of them.
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