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.
When asking ChatGPT about my name, it provided the following:
“…it seems like you may be referring to a private person rather than a widely known public figure. If that’s the case, I wouldn’t have any specific public information on him unless he has gained some public recognition for a particular achievement.”
It shouldn’t be used for looking up people that aren’t celebrities or at least known for something.
If you didn’t specifically search for “Mr. <name>”, that would be quite the sexist attitude to assume that person is a “him” ;)
PS: please don’t use LLMs, they produce nothing of value and contribute to idiots being deceived.
The problem with that is that a guy who murdered his three kids is known for something.
At the most generous, maybe the professor in the article shares a name with the killer. Articles will include enough information to clear the professor (like maybe the killer has been in jail for a decade ). A LLM will weave together real information about the professor with the “fact” that he killed his kids.
ChatGPT shouldn’t be used to find any real information, period.