Copilot falsely accuses journalist of being a child molester and fraudster
Microsoft's Copilot chatbot falsely accused German journalist Martin Bernklau of serious crimes he had reported on. A long-time court reporter in the Tübingen area of Germany, Bernklau queried the system about himself, only to find it incorrectly claimed he was a convicted child molester, an escapee from a psychiatric facility, and a fraudster who preyed on widows. The bot also provided Bernklau's personal information, including his full address and phone number Copilot appears to have mistakenly cast Bernklau as a perpetrator based on his decades of reporting on abuse, violence, and fraud cases. After receiving a cease-and-desist letter, Microsoft attempted to remove the false information, but it reappeared after a few days. The public prosecutor's office in Tübingen declined to press charges, stating no crime had been committed since the accusations came from an AI, not a real person. 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: Martin Bernklau Developer: Microso ft Country: Germany Sector: Media/entertainment/sports/arts Purpose: Generate te xt Technology: Chatbot; NLP/text analysis; Machine learning Issue: Accuracy/reliability; Privacy
- Date it happened
- 2024-08-01
- Organisation involved
- Martin Bernklau
- Product, system or model
- Microsoft Copilot
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