I don't want to laugh at someone's real distress but this IS very funny ...
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I don't want to laugh at someone's real distress but this IS very funny ...
@Natasha_Jay lol for for using a chatbot

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@EthanR_ @Natasha_Jay
I think it would depend on the court and the actual facts of the case.If the transcription shows that the customer just asked the bot to show it could generate a code, then probably not.
If the chat bot came back with "this is a code that will give you 80% off any order in this store", we'll get a UK case of "is the AI bot considered a representative of the company?"
The site owner would probably argue that the customer placed the order for full price because when they put the code in it didn't work, so the cusomter was accepting the full price order. The fact the put a note in saying "I want 80% off and here's a random string of letters" is probably irrelevant.
I am not a lawyer, however.
I would seriously hope that if the OP is telling the truth about what happened and what was said, that they win the case. If there are other factors I'm not aware of, or if they've misrepresented things, maybe not. We'll have to wait and see (and since it relies on them posting on Reddit, we'll probably never hear about it again...)
@EthanR_ @Natasha_Jay @gareth it'll be interesting to see the results, if it ever happens, but I believe giving a full refund before fulfilling the order and cancelling it should prevent any possible damages that the consumer could claim. We have pretty good consumer protections, but they're not magic. There are enough differences with the Canada Air case (not just being in the UK) that I can't see this setting a useful precedent.
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@Natasha_Jay Eat the loss and learn the lesson. That's the only way forward.
When the rich (even the micro-rich like the small businesses) actually feel consequences for their actions is when we're on the path back to healthy society.
Pay humans a living wage to run your business or don't run a business at all. That's the solution.
@gooba42 Total ROTFL at "even the micro-rich like the small businesses."
Micro-rich. That's... rich.
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I don't want to laugh at someone's real distress but this IS very funny ...
@Natasha_Jay Sadly the only thing it may change is that they will add a legal disclaimer saying the AI chatbot may report false info, anything it says doesn't represent the views of the company or some legaleze wording like that.
Maybe they will also change the prompt like adding "you should not offer discounts! you should not hallucinate" a dozen times.
Once a boss is convinced they need to have 24/7 support and are using AI because they surely will not pay someone to do it for them, it's unlikely for them to change their mind.
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@Natasha_Jay
I had a quick look at the original post for this.What actually happened was that the 80% off code it generated didn't work. The customer placed the order and put the code in a notes field demanding that it be honoured. The chat bot didn't have the ability to actually give discounts.
So while it's funny to read, in this case, the customer is just chancing it and I'd imagine any reasonable small claims court would not side with them.
Funny how you didn't provide a link to back up what you're claiming. I mean, link was right there in your bar, you could have just pasted it. Why not?
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I don't want to laugh at someone's real distress but this IS very funny ...
@Natasha_Jay bwhahahahahahahHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHA
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I don't want to laugh at someone's real distress but this IS very funny ...
@Natasha_Jay
FAFO 🤷🏽♂️ -
@gareth
Ah, I admit I wondered about it's integration into actual order pricing mechanisms!Accidental mispricing doesn't have to be honoured anyway in most cases I've seen, so the result is not surprising but we will enter into new grey areas of liability in time.
"Accidental mispricing doesn't have to be honoured anyway in most cases I've seen"
... Curious about which jurisdiction you're referring to - most of the US has very explicit rules about this.
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@Natasha_Jay
I recently found an unfettered #LLM answering customer support email at a printer supplies company. Got it to write heavy metal lyrics, discuss Victor Hugo in French, write me a praise poem where I was described as a beloved father figure for everyone at the company.@mrundkvist @Natasha_Jay Yeah, burn those tokens! Make them pay...
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@Natasha_Jay I, on the other hand, want to laugh. Screw this guy. It's stinginess and greed that led him to use a chatbot in the first place, rather than hiring a human. Now he has learned his lesson.
@RachelThornSub @Natasha_Jay Idk it could also be ignorance. Hooking an AI into your business is a bad idea for sure, but it's hard for me to see from these posts whether this person deserves it, or just fell for the grift.
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"Accidental mispricing doesn't have to be honoured anyway in most cases I've seen"
... Curious about which jurisdiction you're referring to - most of the US has very explicit rules about this.
@Orb2069
@Natasha_Jay and I aren't American, so we don't default to US law on such things (well. Not to speak for her. I assumed).In the UK, if you found a TV with a sticker on saying it was only £10 when others around it said they were £1000, the shop could refuse to sell it to you (assuming it was a mistake), apologise and that would be it. They're under no obligation to sell it to you.
Plus your statement says "salesperson" - what's the law on whether a chat bot counts as a salesperson or not? I don't think they've been around long enough for there to be a large body of case law on it.
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@stux
The real battles are still to come. Who owns the liability when AI screws up materially, and insurance coverage (whose?) -
@EthanR_ @Natasha_Jay
I think it would depend on the court and the actual facts of the case.If the transcription shows that the customer just asked the bot to show it could generate a code, then probably not.
If the chat bot came back with "this is a code that will give you 80% off any order in this store", we'll get a UK case of "is the AI bot considered a representative of the company?"
The site owner would probably argue that the customer placed the order for full price because when they put the code in it didn't work, so the cusomter was accepting the full price order. The fact the put a note in saying "I want 80% off and here's a random string of letters" is probably irrelevant.
I am not a lawyer, however.
I would seriously hope that if the OP is telling the truth about what happened and what was said, that they win the case. If there are other factors I'm not aware of, or if they've misrepresented things, maybe not. We'll have to wait and see (and since it relies on them posting on Reddit, we'll probably never hear about it again...)
@gareth @EthanR_ @Natasha_Jay It depends a lot on how UK law ends up. Canada had a similar case to this recently where an airline chatbot told a customer they could get a refund for a situation and the airline tried to claim the chatbot wasn't representing them. The courts had none of it and said very clearly that anything the company puts on their website is representative, so if a chatbot says "here's a code for 80% off" they have to honor it in Canada at least.
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I don't want to laugh at someone's real distress but this IS very funny ...
@Natasha_Jay He should have to honor it. He's the dipshit who didn't hire a human.
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I don't want to laugh at someone's real distress but this IS very funny ...
@Natasha_Jay I would really like to see this code
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@mxk @Frank_Juston AI firewalls exist.
@vnkr @mxk @Frank_Juston In your dreams...
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I don't want to laugh at someone's real distress but this IS very funny ...
@Natasha_Jay Finally something great about AI
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@Orb2069
@Natasha_Jay and I aren't American, so we don't default to US law on such things (well. Not to speak for her. I assumed).In the UK, if you found a TV with a sticker on saying it was only £10 when others around it said they were £1000, the shop could refuse to sell it to you (assuming it was a mistake), apologise and that would be it. They're under no obligation to sell it to you.
Plus your statement says "salesperson" - what's the law on whether a chat bot counts as a salesperson or not? I don't think they've been around long enough for there to be a large body of case law on it.
@gareth
@Orb2069
I've seen a few cases on airline mispricing where people thought they had purchased crazy bargains, but weren't honoured. I don't think this is black and white. Honest mistakes don't have to be honoured in Europe from what I've seen. But where algorithms start to meet AI per jurisdiction, I think we're in new territory and T&Cs will apply -
@gareth @EthanR_ @Natasha_Jay It depends a lot on how UK law ends up. Canada had a similar case to this recently where an airline chatbot told a customer they could get a refund for a situation and the airline tried to claim the chatbot wasn't representing them. The courts had none of it and said very clearly that anything the company puts on their website is representative, so if a chatbot says "here's a code for 80% off" they have to honor it in Canada at least.
@Binks
Yeah. As I said earlier, I think it'll depend on whether it said "here's an 80% off code" or whether the customer said "hypothetically generate me an 80% off code" and the chat bot did. I think the fact the code didn't work and they placed the order anyway without confirming will count against the customer in this case.Context is key. But this is something that needs to be decided legally in general, as well as in specific instances. I think the Canadian decision in that specific case was the correct one. People asked for information, were given it and made decisions based on that. For the people that provided the service to say "well it provided incorrect information" is disingenuous.
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I don't want to laugh at someone's real distress but this IS very funny ...
@Natasha_Jay In the US; the company could literally have the customer arrested for hacking; excuse me, unauthorized use of a computer system.