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by spywaregorilla 851 days ago
The real desire here is to get it to promise a lifetime of free service.

edit: arguing that the chatbot is a separate legal entity is a wild claim. It would imply to me that air canada could sue the ai company for damages if it makes bad promises; not that air canada is excused from paying the customer.
3 comments
bluGill 851 days ago
If I were the agent who made that promise what would they do to me? Fire me - then fire the chatbot. Put me through training - then train the chatbot. Stand behind me and do what I say - then stand behind their chatbot.

I bet they already have policies in place for this - while how they apply to AI may be different, they shouldn't let this slide.

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spywaregorilla 851 days ago
The key term here is "apparent authority". You don't need to be granted authority for each and every thing you do, but if you start grossly doing things you were not supposed to do, that's mostly just fraud on your end.

The common example in textbooks is someone continuing to do business as an employee after having been fired. They can still make valid deals with other entities due to apparent authority if they're not clearly made out to be separated.

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jerf 851 days ago
This is pretty close: https://www.msn.com/en-us/autos/news/ai-blunder-chat-bot-sel...
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Cpoll 851 days ago
> promise a lifetime of free service.

That might be too wishful thinking. The tribunal would take into account damages, and whether it was reasonable to believe that you're entitled to free service.

In this case, the chatbot promised a ~$800 discount, and the tribunal awarded ~$800. But I doubt they'd make the same decision again, or deem the lifetime service enforceable/un-cancellable.

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spywaregorilla 851 days ago
I think it's within the bounds of reason if you can cite emotional damages to grant pretty much any recourse. It maybe won't fly if you're clearly trying to trick the AI, but I think there will be general plausible deniability.

It may feel weird, but it's utterly insane to delegate customer interactions to an agent that has nobody's interest in mind, not even their own, whom you cannot trust to abide by policy.

Similarly, if the bot negotiated any sort of special deal, I think it would be very, very difficult to argue that it lacked apparent authority to make deals or that it's not a fair consideration.

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