{"id":1508202,"date":"2024-12-16T15:45:00","date_gmt":"2024-12-16T20:45:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/?p=1508202"},"modified":"2024-12-16T15:45:00","modified_gmt":"2024-12-16T20:45:00","slug":"ghosted-by-chatgpt-how-jonathan-turley-was-first-defamed-then-deleted-by-ai","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/ghosted-by-chatgpt-how-jonathan-turley-was-first-defamed-then-deleted-by-ai\/1508202\/","title":{"rendered":"Ghosted By ChatGPT: How Jonathan Turley Was First Defamed & Then Deleted By AI"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ghosted By ChatGPT: How Jonathan Turley Was First Defamed & Then Deleted By AI<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Authored by Jonathan Turley,<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

It is not every day that you achieve the status of \u201che-who-must-not-be-named.\u201d <\/strong><\/p>\n

But that curious distinction has been bestowed upon me by OpenAI\u2019s ChatGPT, according to the\u00a0New York Times<\/a>,\u00a0Wall Street Journal<\/a>, and other publications.<\/p>\n

For more than a year, people who tried to research my name online using ChatGPT were met with an immediate error warning.<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

It turns out that I am among a small group of individuals who have been effectively disappeared by the AI system.<\/strong> How we came to this Voldemortian status is a chilling tale about not just the rapidly expanding role of artificial intelligence, but the power of companies like OpenAI.<\/p>\n

Joining me in this dubious distinction are Harvard Professor Jonathan Zittrain, CNBC anchor David Faber, Australian mayor Brian Hood, English professor David Mayer, and a few others.<\/p>\n

The common thread appears to be the false stories generated about us all by ChatGPT in the past. The company appears to have corrected the problem not by erasing the error but erasing the individuals in question.<\/p>\n

Thus far, the ghosting is limited to ChatGPT sites, but the controversy highlights a novel political and legal question in the brave new world of AI.<\/strong><\/p>\n

My path toward cyber-erasure began with a\u00a0bizarre and entirely fabricated account by ChatGPT.<\/p>\n

As I\u00a0wrote at the time<\/a>, ChatGPT falsely reported that there had been a claim of sexual harassment against me (which there never was) based on something that supposedly happened on a 2018 trip with law students to Alaska<\/strong> (which never occurred), while I was on the faculty of Georgetown Law (where I have never taught).<\/p>\n

In support of its false and defamatory claim, ChatGPT cited a Washington Post article that had never been written and quoted from a statement that had never been issued by the newspaper.\u00a0The Washington Post investigated the false story<\/a>\u00a0and discovered that another AI program, \u201cMicrosoft\u2019s Bing, which is powered by GPT-4, repeated the false claim about Turley.\u201d<\/p>\n

Although some of those defamed in this manner chose to sue these companies for defamatory AI reports, I did not. I assumed that the company, which has never reached out to me, would correct the problem.<\/strong><\/p>\n

And it did, in a manner of speaking \u2014 apparently by digitally erasing me, at least to some extent. In some algorithmic universe, the logic is simple: there is no false story if there is no discussion of the individual.<\/p>\n

As with Voldemort, even death is no guarantee of closure. <\/strong>Professor Mayer was a respected Emeritus Professor of Drama and Honorary Research Professor at the University of Manchester, who passed away last year. And ChatGPT reportedly will still not utter his name.<\/p>\n

Before his death, his name was used by a Chechen rebel on a terror watch list. The result was a snowballing association of the professor, who found himself facing travel and communication restrictions.<\/p>\n

Hood, the Australian mayor, was so frustrated with a false AI-generated narrative that he had been arrested for bribery that he\u00a0took legal action against OpenAI<\/a>. That may have contributed to his own erasure.<\/p>\n

The company\u2019s lack of transparency and responsiveness has added to concerns over these incidents. Ironically, many of us are used to false attacks on the Internet and false accounts about us. But this company can move individuals into a type of online purgatory for no other reason than that its AI generated a false story whose subject had the temerity to object.<\/p>\n

You can either be seen falsely as a felon or be unseen entirely on the ubiquitous information system. Capone or Casper, gangster or a ghost \u2014 your choice.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Microsoft owns almost half of equity in OpenAI.\u00a0Ironically, I previously criticized Microsoft founder and billionaire\u00a0Bill Gates\u00a0<\/a>for his push to use artificial intelligence to combat not just \u201cdigital misinformation\u201d but \u201cpolitical polarization.\u201d Gates sees the unleashing of AI as a way to stop \u201cvarious conspiracy theories\u201d and\u00a0prevent certain views from being \u201cmagnified by digital channels.\u201d He added that AI can combat \u201cpolitical polarization\u201d by checking \u201cconfirmation bias.\u201d<\/p>\n

I do not believe that my own ghosting was retaliation for such criticism. Moreover, like the other desparecidos, I am still visible on sites and through other systems. But it does show how these companies can use these powerful systems to remove all references to individuals. Moreover, corporate executives may not be particularly motivated to correct such ghosting, particularly in the absence of any liability or accountability.<\/p>\n

That means that any solution is likely to come only from legislative action. AI\u2019s influence is expanding exponentially, and this new technology has obvious benefits. However, it also has considerable risks that should be addressed.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Ironically, Professor Zittrain has written on\u00a0the \u201cright to be forgotten<\/a>\u201d in tech and digital spaces. Yet he never asked to be erased or blocked by OpenAI\u2019s algorithms.<\/p>\n

The question is whether, in addition to a negative right to be forgotten, there is a positive right to be known. Think of it as the Heisenberg moment, where\u00a0the Walter Whites<\/a>\u00a0of the world demand that ChatGPT \u201csay my name.\u201d In the U.S., there is no established precedent for such a demand.<\/p>\n

There is no reason to see these exclusions or erasures as some dark corporate conspiracy or robot retaliation. It seems to be a default position when the system commits egregious, potentially expensive errors \u2014 which might be even more disturbing. It raises the prospect of algorithms sending people into the Internet abyss with little recourse or response. You are simply ghosted because the system made a mistake, and your name is now triggering for the system.<\/p>\n

This is all well short of\u00a0Hal 9000<\/a>\u00a0saying \u201cI\u2019m sorry Dave, I\u2019m afraid I can\u2019t do that\u201d in an AI homicidal rage. <\/strong>Thus far, this is a small haunt of digital ghosts. However, it is an example of the largely unchecked power of these systems and the relatively uncharted waters ahead.<\/p>\n

*\u00a0 *\u00a0 *<\/p>\n

Jonathan Turley\u00a0is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University. He is the author of \u201cThe Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage<\/a>.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Tyler Durden<\/a><\/span>
\nMon, 12\/16\/2024 – 10:45<\/span><\/p>\n

\u200bhttps:\/\/www.zerohedge.com\/political\/ghosted-chatgpt-how-jonathan-turley-was-first-defamed-then-deleted-ai<\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ghosted By ChatGPT: How Jonathan Turley Was First Defamed & Then Deleted By AI Authored by Jonathan Turley, It is not every day that you…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":1508203,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1508202","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","wpcat-1-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1508202","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1508202"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1508202\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1508203"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1508202"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1508202"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugaluu.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1508202"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}