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AIAAIC-1368

Microsoft Copilot generates fake Putin comments on Navalny death

Microsoft's Copilot chatbot generated false statements attributed to Vladimir Putin regarding the death of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny . In response to a prompt by a journalist at Sherwood Media for a news article about Navalny's death, Copilot claimed US president Joe Biden held Putin responsible for Nalvalny's death, and that Putin called the accusations 'baseless and politically motivated.' Opposition figure Alexei Navalny died on February 16, 2024 while serving a lengthy prison sentence on charges of extremism and fraud that were widely seen as politically-motived. Putin made no public comment on Navlany's death. The fake statements were seen as evidence of Copilot's ability to 'hallucinate' fa lse facts, produce political disinformation, and manipulate internet users. Microsoft indicated that it had investigated the matter and would make changes to improve the quality of responses generated by the chatbot. Hallucination (artificial intelligence) In the field of artificial intelligence (AI), a hallucination or artificial hallucination (also called bullshitting, confabulation or delusion) is a response generated by AI that contains false or misleading information presented as fact . Source: Wikipedia 🔗 System 🤖 Microsoft Copilot Operator: Sherwood Media Developer: Microsoft Country: USA Sector: Politics Purpose: Generate text Technology: Chatbot; NLP/text analysis; Neural network; Deep learning; Machine learning; Reinforcement learning Issue: Accuracy/reliability; Mis/disinformation

Date it happened
2024-02-01
Organisation involved
Microsoft
Product, system or model
Microsoft Copilot
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