ChatGPT Didn’t Lie with Malice: Georgia Judge Tosses Defamation Lawsuit Against OpenAI

“OpenAI’s industry-leading efforts to reduce errors of this kind and its extensive warnings to users that errors of this kind could occur negate any possibility that a jury could find OpenAI acted with actual malice here,” Judge Cason wrote in her opinion.

Walters, a syndicated talk radio host known for his advocacy of Second Amendment rights, filed suit in 2023 after ChatGPT responded to a journalist’s question by inventing a lawsuit in which Walters was falsely named as a defendant in a fictional gun-related legal matter.

The journalist, who worked for AmmoLand.com, later realized the information was entirely fictitious and never published the claims. Walters, however, said the error was deeply defamatory and damaging to his reputation.

This case marked one of the first legal attempts to hold an AI company accountable for misinformation generated by its model. Legal analysts viewed the lawsuit as a bellwether test for how courts will handle speech created by non-human agents.

OpenAI responded to the suit by noting that ChatGPT is an evolving tool designed to provide useful assistance, not verified legal fact. The company pointed out that users are constantly warned of its limitations, including a clear disclaimer that the system “may occasionally produce incorrect or misleading information.”