this post was submitted on 21 Jan 2024
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A Chevy dealership in Watsonville, California placed an Ai chat bot on their website. A few people began to play with its responses, including making a sales offer of a dollar on a new vehicle source: https://entertainment.slashdot.org/story/23/12/21/0518215/car-buyer-hilariously-tricks-chevy-ai-bot-into-selling-a-tahoe-for-1
It is my opinion that a company with uses a generative or analytical AI must be held legally responsible for its output.
Companies being held responsible for things? Lol
Exec laughs in accountability and fires people
"Lol" said the US legal system, "LMAO"
I think this vastly depends on if there's malicious intent involved with it, and I mean this on both sides. in the case of what was posted they manipulated the program outside of its normal operating parameters to list a quote for the vehicle. Even if they had stated this AI platform was able to do quotes which for my understanding the explicitly stated it's not allowed to do, the seller could argue that there is a unilateral mistake involved that the other side of the party knew about and which was not given to the seller or there is very clear fraudulent activity on the buyers side both of which would give the seller the ability to void the contract.
In the case of no buy side manipulation it gets more difficult, but it could be argued that if the price was clearly wrong, the buyer should have known that fact and was being malicious in intent so the seller can withdraw
Of course this is all with the understanding that the program somehow meets the capacity to enter a legally binding agreement of course
also fun fact, Walmart had this happen with their analytical program five or so years ago, and they listed the Roku streaming stick for ~50 less so instead of it being $60 it was listed as 12, all the stores got flooded with online orders for Roku devices because that's a damn good deal however they got a disclaimer not soon after that any that came in at that price point were to be Auto canceled, which is allowed by the sites TOS
In my opinion, we shouldn't waste time in the courts arguing over whether a claim or offer made by an algorithm is considered reasonable or not. If you want to blindly rely on the technology, you have to be responsible for its output. Keep it simple and let the corporations (and the people making agreements with a chatbot) shoulder the risk and responsibility.