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443 points jaredwiener | 1 comments | | HN request time: 0.299s | source
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broker354690 ◴[] No.45033596[source]
Why isn't OpenAI criminally liable for this?

Last I checked:

-Signals emitted by a machine at the behest of a legal person intended to be read/heard by another legal person are legally classified as 'speech'.

-ChatGPT is just a program like Microsoft Word and not a legal person. OpenAI is a legal person, though.

-The servers running ChatGPT are owned by OpenAI.

-OpenAI willingly did business with this teenager, letting him set up an account in exchange for money. This business is a service under the control of OpenAI, not a product like a knife or gun. OpenAI intended to transmit speech to this teenager.

-A person can be liable (civilly? criminally?) for inciting another person's suicide. It is not protected speech to persuade someone into suicide.

-OpenAI produced some illegal speech and sent it to a suicidal teenager, who then committed suicide.

If Sam Altman stabbed the kid to death, it wouldn't matter if he did it on accident. Sam Altman would be at fault. You wouldn't sue or arrest the knife he used to do the deed.

Any lawyers here who can correct me, seeing as I am not one? It seems clear as day to me that OpenAI/Sam Altman directly encouraged a child to kill themselves.

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blackqueeriroh ◴[] No.45036667[source]
Section 230, without which Hacker News wouldn’t exist.
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1. _Algernon_ ◴[] No.45036997[source]
>In the United States, Section 230 is a section of the Communications Act of 1934 that was enacted as part of the Communications Decency Act of 1996, which is Title V of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, and generally provides immunity for online computer services with respect to third-party content generated by their users. (Emphasis mine)

So either the content is user generated and their training of the model should be copyright infringement, or it's not and Section 230 does not apply and this is speech for which Open AI is responsible.