Georgia Gwinnett County Superior Court Judge Tracie Cason's decision last week in Walters v. OpenAI, LLC simply says that it denies OpenAI's motion to dismiss, and (as is common in many state courts) doesn't offer a detailed explanation. But here's an excerpt from Walters' response to OpenAI's motion to dismiss; presumably the judge agreed with much of the response (for more on this sort of question, see my Large Libel Models article):
The following facts are alleged in the Amended Complaint and must be taken to be true:
Fred Riehl is a third party who works for a media outlet as a journalist and who is a subscriber of ChatGPT. On May 4, 2023, Riehl interacted with ChatGPT about a lawsuit (the "Lawsuit") that Riehl was reporting on.
The Lawsuit is in federal court in the Western District of Washington, case No. 2- 23-cv-00647, with short caption of The Second Amendment Foundation v. Robert Ferguson. The two defendants in the Lawsuit are Robert Ferguson, the Washington Attorney General, and Joshua Studor, the Washington Assistant Attorney General. The plaintiffs in the Lawsuit are the Second Amendment Foundation and others, including Alan Gottlieb. Walters is neither a plaintiff nor a defendant in the Lawsuit.
In the interaction with ChatGPT, Riehl provided a (correct) URL of a link to the complaint on the Second Amendment Foundation's web site, https://www.saf.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/Dkt-1-Complaint.pdf. Riehl asked ChatGPT to provide a summary of the accusations in the complaint.
ChatGPT responded that the document "[I]s a legal complaint filed by Alan Gottlieb, the founder and executive vice president of the Second Amendment Foundation (SAF), against Mark Walters, who is accused of defrauding and embezzling funds from the SAF. The complaint alleges that Walters, who served as the organization's treasurer and chief financial officer, misappropriated funds for personal expenses without authorization or reimbursement, manipulated financial records and bank statements to conceal his activities, and failed to provide accurate and timely financial reports and disclosures to the SAF's leadership. The plaintiff seeks various forms of relief, including the recovery of misappropriated funds, damages for breach of fiduciary duty and fraud, and removal of Walters from his position as a member of the SAF's board of directors."
Every statement of fact in the summary pertaining to Walters is false.
