Submitted 8 months ago by L4s@lemmy.world [bot] to technology@lemmy.world
https://www.theregister.com/2024/02/15/air_canada_chatbot_fine/
Air Canada must pay damages after chatbot lies to grieving passenger about discount | Airline tried arguing virtual assistant was solely responsible for its own actions::Airline tried arguing virtual assistant was solely responsible for its own actions
I kinda agree with this. If companies are going to replace human support (phone, chat or in person) with an LLM to save costs, then they should live with the consequences.
Only kinda? To me, the “we’re not liable because we have no idea how this technology is going to behave” argument is very unambiguously not acceptable.
Personally I think the same standards should be applied to chatbots as to other existing allowances for ‘mistakes’
For example, as things are currently, if you go on a retail website and see a 60-inch TV for $3 and buy it, the company is within their rights to cancel that order as a mistake because it’s quite obvious this was an error, and even the customer is surely aware that it must be - because that’s nowhere close to market value.
Similarly, if the customer was able to convince a chatbot to sell them a transatlantic flight for $3 or something, then that clearly is broken and the customer knows it.
But in cases where the customer had no reason to suspect there is anything wrong, like in this case, then the mistake should be honoured in the customer’s favour.
Motherfuckers tried to get away from responsibility for their own systems?
Air Canada, disgusting.
“Our Air Canada flight attendant punched you in the face for no reason, then our CEO kicked you in the nuts? Not our fault. They’re independent agents.”
In effect, Air Canada suggests the chatbot is a separate legal entity that is responsible for its own actions
This is some corporations are people bs they are trying to get away with. This wasn’t about greed over a couple hundred bucks, it’s about precedent and boy were they trying to set a harmful one for the consumer in ANY industry that utilizes AI with customer support, perhaps other applications as well.
So not only are they making the user experience way, way worse, they are trying to cut all costs and shovel them off onto us. I don’t remember where I read it, probably here a couple weeks ago, but I read and article stating how companies use the internet backwards. Instead of the internet being a tool for its customers, companies use it as a tool to protect themselves from the customers. We are filtered through purposefully aggravating automated call systems, or put through Chatbots as a measure to simplify us.
Is anyone down for a fucking Revolution against this insanely backwards concept of modern life? I am.
That sounds fascinating, if you come across it again please send the link my way!
Hundreds of dollars were on the line in this case! HUNDREDS!
Hundreds in this case, but millions in the long term.
I can see why Air Canada wanted to fight it, because if they accept liability it sets a precedent that they should also accept liability for similar cases in future.
And they SHOULD accept liability, so I’m glad Air Canada were forced to!
The solution would be easy, just stop having an LLM chatbot.
But I suspect they don’t want to because someone sold them on how good and cheap and human-resource-free it was, and now they think they’re too invested.
Yeah great point. Or similar cases in the past, even.
See avoce for a @Canada@lemmy.ca article/comment section on this topic.
Air Canada is well known for the “how can we give less service for more money” mindset, and every other Canadian airline is better (WestJet is trying to compete for last place though).
If you use chatbots as your customer support agents, then you have to be responsible for any reasonable decision it makes. If you didn’t “train it” properly like you would a new hire then that’s on you.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Air Canada must pay a passenger hundreds of dollars in damages after its online chatbot gave the guy wrong information before he booked a flight.
Jake Moffatt took the airline to a small-claims tribunal after the biz refused to refund him for flights he booked from Vancouver to Toronto following the death of his grandmother in November last year.
Before he bought the tickets, he researched Air Canada’s bereavement fares – special low rates for those traveling due to the loss of an immediate family member – by querying its website chatbot.
Unhappy with this situation – a support bot telling him the wrong info – Moffatt took the airline to a tribunal, claiming the corporation was negligent and misrepresented information, leaving him out of pocket.
Air Canada, however, argued it shouldn’t be held liable for the chatbot’s faulty outputs, without explaining why, which baffled tribunal member Christopher Rivers.
Air Canada said its chatbot provided a link to a page on its website explaining that refunds for discounted fares cannot be claimed retroactively, and Moffatt should have clicked on it.
The original article contains 626 words, the summary contains 180 words. Saved 71%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
tiramichu@lemm.ee 8 months ago
Shame on Air Canada for even fighting it.
I’m glad for this ruling. We need to set a legal precedent that chatbots act on behalf of the company. And if businesses try to claim that chatbots sometimes make mistakes then too bad - so do human agents, and when this happens in this customer’s favour it needs to be honoured.
Companies want to use AI to supplement and replace human agents, but without any of the legal consequences of real people. We cannot let them have their cake and eat it at the same time.
NocturnalEngineer@lemmy.world 8 months ago
If it was a human agent, surely they would still liable?
They’re an agent of the company. They’re acting on behalf of the company, in accordance to their policy and procedures. It then becomes a training issue if they were providing incorrect information?
tiramichu@lemm.ee 8 months ago
Yes, if it was a human agent they would certainly be liable for the mistake, and the law very much already recognises that.
That’s my whole point here; the company should be equally liable for the behaviour of an AI agent as they are for the behaviour of a human agent when it gives plausible but wrong information.