The article is here [UPDATE: link fixed]; the Introduction:
Within two months of its launch, ChatGPT became the fastest-growing consumer application in history with more than 100 million monthly active users. Created by OpenAI, a private company backed by Microsoft, ChatGPT is just one of several sophisticated chatbots made available to the public in late 2022. These large language models generate human-like responses to user prompts based on information they have "learned" during a training process. Ask ChatGPT to explain the concept of quantum physics and it synthesizes the subject into six readable paragraphs. Prompt it with an inquiry about the biggest scandal in baseball history and it describes the Black Sox Scandal of 1919. This is a tool that can respond to an incredible variety of content creation requests ranging from academic papers to language translations, explanations of complicated math problems, and telling jokes. But it is not without risk. It is also capable of generating speech that causes harm, such as defamation.
Although some safeguards are in place, there already exist documented examples of ChatGPT creating defamatory speech. And this should not come as a surprise—if something is capable of speech, it is capable of false speech that sometimes causes reputational harm. Of course, artificial intelligence (AI) tools have caused speech harms before. Amazon's Alexa device—touted as a virtual assistant that can make your life easier—has on occasion gone rogue: It has made violent statements to users, and even suggested they engage in harmful acts. Google search's autocomplete function has fueled defamation lawsuits arising from suggested words such as "rapist," "fraud," and "scam." An app called SimSimi has notoriously perpetuated cyberbullying and defamation. Tay, a chatbot launched by Microsoft, caused controversy when just hours after its launch it began to post inflammatory and offensive messages. So the question isn't whether these tools can cause harm. It's when they do cause harm, who—if anyone—is legally responsible?
