When AI gets it wrong, who is responsible for defamation? Hanna Basha & Jamie Hurworth consider where liability may lie
- Traditional defamation principles can apply to AI-generated content, with those publishing or adopting it potentially liable for reputational harm.
- AI providers may also face liability where their systems generate defamatory material, particularly once alerted to false or damaging output.
Widespread adoption of generative artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming how organisations create and publish content and how the public consumes it. Alongside the opportunities, however, come significant legal risks.
Recognising the importance of these issues, the UK Jurisdiction Taskforce has coordinated the preparation of an authoritative legal statement examining liability for non-deliberate AI harms under English law, including the application of defamation principles to AI-generated content.
As businesses increasingly deploy large language models (LLMs), chatbots and automated publishing tools, and the use of LLMs and chatbots in wider society continues to challenge the dominance of traditional search engines, it is necessary to explore the question: who is legally responsible when an AI system generates a false statement
