Use of AI chatbots as an alternative to traditional customer
support has dramatically increased over the last few years. Their
appeal is understandable in that these artificial intelligence
programs are able to provide rapid and coherent answers to client
questions thereby cost-effectively reducing a company's need
for human customer support staff. However, and despite their
widespread adoption, owner liability for false or misleading
statements made by a chatbot remains uncharted territory.
Because AI chatbots are able to offer coherent answers, their
mistakes are often difficult to spot unless they are patently
ridiculous such as when Google's AI told users to add glue to pizza to make cheese stick
better. These false or inaccurate statement can easily become
dangerous where they appear so legitimate that a consumer could
easily rely on them to their detriment. This was the case in May of
2024 where CBC news reported that Meta AI, an
artificial intelligence chatbot
