OpenAI’s highly popular chatbot, ChatGPT, regularly gives false information about people without offering any way to correct it. In many cases, these so-called “hallucinations” can seriously damage a person’s reputation: In the past, ChatGPT falsely accused people of corruption, child abuse – or even murder. The latter was the case with a Norwegian user. When he tried to find out if the chatbot had any information about him, ChatGPT confidently made up a fake story that pictured him as a convicted murderer. This clearly isn’t an isolated case. noyb has therefore filed its second complaint against OpenAI. By knowingly allowing ChatGPT to produce defamatory results, the company clearly violates the GDPR’s principle of data accuracy.
Despite what others are saying there is indeed an inaccuracy in calling this a privacy complaint. A lot of people outside of the EU conflate privacy with data protection, but they are not the same and GDPR does not concern with privacy but exclusively with personal data protection.
Accuracy, availability and governance of personal data are indeed important criteria for data protection, and this is what this is about.
Regarding people making shit up, if they make such things public, GDPR governs those just as much, while still referring to the normal legislation for the charges for slander.