this post was submitted on 23 Mar 2025
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A Norwegian man said he was horrified to discover that ChatGPT outputs had falsely accused him of murdering his own children.

According to a complaint filed Thursday by European Union digital rights advocates Noyb, Arve Hjalmar Holmen decided to see what information ChatGPT might provide if a user searched his name. He was shocked when ChatGPT responded with outputs falsely claiming that he was sentenced to 21 years in prison as "a convicted criminal who murdered two of his children and attempted to murder his third son," a Noyb press release said.

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[–] [email protected] 184 points 5 days ago (29 children)

It's AI. There's nothing to delete but the erroneous response. There is no database of facts to edit. It doesn't know fact from fiction, and the response is also very much skewed by the context of the query. I could easily get it to say the same about nearly any random name just by asking it about a bunch of family murders and then asking about a name it doesn't recognize. It is more likely to assume that person is in the same category as the others and if the one or more of the names have any association (real or fictional) with murder.

[–] [email protected] 105 points 5 days ago (6 children)

I don't care why. That is still libel and it is illegal for good reason. if you can't stop this for all cases then you ai is and should be illegal.

[–] [email protected] 49 points 5 days ago (1 children)

None of the moneybags will listen, unfortunately. But I'm with you. The rollout of AI was extremely irresponsible. Just to make it profitable as quickly as possible.

[–] Flagstaff 10 points 4 days ago

To be fair, based on observations after these years, it doesn't appear that waiting longer before release would have significantly improved Autocomplete Idiocy in any way.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 5 days ago (2 children)

Seems to me libel would require AI to have credibility, which it does not.

It's a tool. Like most useful tools it can do harmful things. We know almost nothing about the provenance of this output. It could have been poisoned either accidentally or deliberately.

But above all, the problem is ignorant people believing the output of AI is truth. It's pretty good at some things, but the more esoteric the knowledge, the less reliable it is. It's best to treat AI as a storyteller. Yeah there are a lot of facts in there but when they don't serve the story they can be embellished. I don't see the harm in just acknowledging that and moving on.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Meanwhile, AI vendors:

“AI will soon be the only way we access information and make decisions!”

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[–] [email protected] 21 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Im not a lawyer but the most conclusive missing piece of what we commonly understand to be libel is the information has to be published.

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[–] [email protected] 15 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Except it's not libel. It's a one time string of text generated exclusively for him. Literally no one would have known what it said if the guy didn't get the exact thing he wants "deleted" published online for everyone to see. Now it'll be linked to his name forever, but the llm didn't do that.

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

Libel requires the claims to be published or broadcasted, so it isn't. A predictive text algorithm strung some random words together, and the guy got offended.
It's like suing because your phone keyboard autosuggested "is a murderer" as the next words after you wrote your name. Btw, I tried it a few times for lulz and managed to get it to write out "bluGill and the kids are going to get it on", so I guess you can sue Google now?

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[–] [email protected] 45 points 5 days ago (22 children)

I have this gun machine that shoots in all directions randomly. I can't predict it, so I can't stop it from shooting you. So sorry. It's uncontrollable.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 5 days ago (4 children)

If creating text is like shooting bullets, we should require a license for text editors.

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 5 days ago (10 children)

Yeah but I can just ignore the bullets because they are nerf. And I have my own nerf guns as well.

I mean at some point any analogy fails, but AI is nothing like a gun.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 5 days ago (3 children)

They may seem like nerf when they first come out of the AI, but they turn into real bullets once they start filling people's heads with convincing enough lies and falsehoods, and those people start wielding their own weapons against minorities, democracy, and the government. If the election of Trump 2.0 has not convinced you of the immense danger of disinformation and misinformation, I have literally no idea how anything could ever possibly get through to you.

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[–] [email protected] 23 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (2 children)

Plot twist: "Dad" isn't even his real name.

[–] Tja 2 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

What?? That changes everything! Does that mean my name could be false too?

Best regards,
- Hungry

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 3 days ago

Sorry, I've spent months telling chatgpt that Arve Hjalmar Holmen killed his kids for a school project.

[–] [email protected] 74 points 5 days ago (16 children)

It’s all hallucinations.

Some (many) just happen to be very close to factual.

It’s sad to see that the marketing of these tools has been so effective that few realize how they work and what they do.

[–] [email protected] 27 points 4 days ago (2 children)

It really is sad. I often hear, "I even asked ChatGPT and it said..." as if that means their response is valid. I've heard people say it who I thought would know better, too.

[–] [email protected] 19 points 4 days ago (1 children)

The number of times I've heard that by people expecting it to win them arguments is incredibly discouraging.

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

few realize how they work and what they do.

Seriously, you have no idea. I have spent some time delving into the current models, human psychology, neurology and evolution and how people engage with each other or other entities, and the problem is already worse than we realize, and it's going to get so, so much worse, because our species has major vulnerabilities in our entire conscious experience, these things are going to reshape the way people engage with reality itself at some point and we should all be a lot more concerned and I'm an old man yelling on the street corner with a cardboard sign huh.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 4 days ago (2 children)

yeah it's sick. it's not AI, but it will destroy the world. I kinda think that's the point of it.

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[–] [email protected] 90 points 5 days ago (2 children)

Well, here we are. We skipped using this tech for only search Automation and leapfrogged to directly making shit up (once again).

[–] [email protected] 58 points 5 days ago (3 children)

To me it's clear that these tools are primarily useful as bullshit generators, and I expect them to hallucinate and be inaccurate. But the companies trying to capitalize on the "AI" bubble are saying that these tools can be useful and accurate. I imagine OpenAI is going to have to invoke the Fox News defense in this case, and claim that "no reasonable person would take this seriously".

[–] [email protected] 1 points 13 hours ago

I feel like the primary use of these tools is only grammar and writing assistance. Everything else is just plugging in extra tools to make it more useful... although the way Perplexity does it is considerably more useful than the rest.

[–] [email protected] 31 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Don’t use hallucinate to describe what it is doing, that is humanizing it and making the tech seem more advanced than it is. It is randomly mashing words together without understanding the meaning of any of them

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[–] [email protected] 20 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Leapfrogged? It never left. LLMs were made to make shit up.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 13 hours ago

Not necessarily, but I get what you mean...

[–] [email protected] 50 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (1 children)

Is it really him that it's saying did this? I mean, I could look up my dad's name and all I get are articles about a serial killer who just happened to have the same name; and that's not generated by AI. Names aren't usually unique identifiers.

[–] [email protected] 24 points 4 days ago (5 children)

ChatGPT's "made-up horror story" not only hallucinated events that never happened, but it also mixed "clearly identifiable personal data"—such as the actual number and gender of Holmen's children and the name of his hometown—with the "fake information," Noyb's press release said.

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[–] [email protected] 15 points 4 days ago (2 children)

Are we sure that someone else with that name hasn't committed those crimes? After all if I search my name it says I'm an astronaut, because there is an actual NASA astronaut with my name. It's not saying I'm that person, it's just saying that that name is the same as that person's.

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[–] [email protected] 18 points 4 days ago (2 children)

When do we start suing makers of fortune cookies for lucky coincidences?

"Claim".

I mean, the guy is right, because it's advertised as "artificial intelligence".

Were it advertised as word salad generator, a Markovian chain grown big and scary, something in principle similar to programs for generation of fantasy language texts and spells and names (if someone remembers 00s good old web) for roleplaying, - then there would be no problem.

But if to sell something better you lie what it is, and that lie has social consequences, you should get sued to freezing hot inferno with mustard-greased giant-cockroach-dildo-covered walls. You should also probably face criminal charges.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Yeah, similar to Tesla "full self driving".

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 days ago

No, you see where he grew up it was a common expression that meant you drive it yourself!

It couldn't possibly be expected to mean what any sane person would think.

The fuckin' Pedo Guy.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 4 days ago (1 children)

People thinking a glorified autocorrect is a source of factual information is horrifying.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 4 days ago

that's what was advertised. To most people, computers are actual arcane magic, impossible to understand except by the wizards in IT who can do anything.

Of course people believed it.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 4 days ago

Or ChatGPT has become a precog and is reporting a precrime. Lock him up!

[–] [email protected] 9 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (2 children)

when I've searched my name with Google over the years, it has said I'm a high school football star, corporate lawyer, Ironman competitor, hotel chef, tech support specialist, janitorial manager, and horse trainer. LIES! ALL LIES!!!

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 4 days ago

Context: @[email protected] is an international fugitive wanted for many warcrimes including the mass murder against various AIs

-Sincerely ChatGPT

[–] [email protected] 17 points 5 days ago (1 children)

There's a list of names of people who have sued OpenAI, they often cause ChatGPT to shut down.

We should keep those names handy just incase cyber dogs are ever chasing us.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 5 days ago

Certain names, including "David Mayer," "Brian Hood," "Jonathan Turley," "Jonathan Zittrain," "David Faber," and "Guido Scorza," cause ChatGPT to produce an error message and terminate the chat session, likely due to a hard-coded filter or privacy concerns.

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