Faulty AI that told people to break the law defended by New York mayor
New York mayor defends another piece of untested tech
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A AIchatbotrecently introduced to the city of New York as a way for business owners to get 24/7 access to “actionable and trusted information” has been defended by Mayor Eric Adams after it was called out forencouraging entrepreneurs to break the law.
The MyCity AI chatbot usesMicrosoft’s Azure AI large language models, but is plagued by the same issues that most AI models suffer from, including giving wrong and misleading information.
In response to the criticisms, Mayor Adams stated that theAI toolis “wrong in some areas, and we’ve got to fix it,” further defending the chatbot saying that, “Any time you use technology, you need to put it into the real environment to iron out the kinks.”
Break the law, it’s perfectly legal
The chatbot was previously reported as telling landlords that they were free to discriminate based on income, and that business owners could take workers tips as their own - despite both of these practices being illegal in New York.
Subsequent probes of the chatbot’s responses on Thursday revealed that it was still giving out incorrect information, withReutersreporting that the AI had said that stores no longer had to accept cash as a method of payment, despite the fact that this violates New York law.
The director of the NYC Hospitality Alliance, Andrew Rigie, said “I commend the city for trying to use AI to help businesses, but it needs to work. “If when I ask a question and then I have to go back to my lawyers to know whether or not the answer is correct, it defeats the purpose.”
The MyCity chatbot has since been updated to state that the AI’s responses “may sometimes be inaccurate or incomplete” and that the answers given in response to queries should not be used as legal or professional advice.
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Benedict has been writing about security issues for over 7 years, first focusing on geopolitics and international relations while at the University of Buckingham. During this time he studied BA Politics with Journalism, for which he received a second-class honours (upper division), then continuing his studies at a postgraduate level, achieving a distinction in MA Security, Intelligence and Diplomacy. Upon joining TechRadar Pro as a Staff Writer, Benedict transitioned his focus towards cybersecurity, exploring state-sponsored threat actors, malware, social engineering, and national security. Benedict is also an expert on B2B security products, including firewalls, antivirus, endpoint security, and password management.
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