Australian Mayor Threatening Lawsuit Over ChatGPT Libel

Financial Review (Australia) [Byron Kaye] reports (see also Reuters):

Brian Hood, who was elected mayor of Hepburn Shire, 120 kilometres north-west of Melbourne, last November, became concerned about his reputation when members of the public told him ChatGPT had falsely named him as a guilty party in a foreign bribery scandal involving a subsidiary of the Reserve Bank of Australia in the early 2000s.

Mr Hood did work for the subsidiary, Note Printing Australia, but was the person who notified authorities about payment of bribes to foreign officials to win currency printing contracts, and was never charged with a crime, lawyers representing him said.

The lawyers said they sent a letter of concern to ChatGPT owner OpenAI on March 21, which gave OpenAI 28 days to fix the errors about their client or face a possible defamation lawsuit….

Australian defamation damages payouts are generally capped around $400,000….