Sewell Setzer, age fourteen took his own life last February after developing a romantic attachment to an AI-generated character on Character. AI platform, according to a lawsuit filed by his family against the company. The late Paul Mohney never saw combat, and neither did Olena Zelenska, the wife of Ukraine’s president, buy a rare Bugatti Tourbillon sports car.

The false information generated by artificial intelligence (AI) was disseminated to profit from obituary ads or to promote Russian propaganda.

In Edinburgh, a cleaner, a single mother of two, lost her benefits due to bias in the AI ​​system, as did many women in similar situations. A customer of a payment platform was erroneously alerted by the algorithm about a transaction that never took place. A lawsuit is challenging the safety of a vehicle due to an alleged programming error, and thousands of users have had their data used without consent.

At the end of the AI ​​chain are real people, but responsibility for the harm caused remains unclear. “We are facing an alarming legislative vacuum”, warns Cecilia Danesi, the author of the paper Consumer rights at the crossroads of artificial intelligence.

I profit from the death of strangers

Make money off the death of strangers it has become easy and cheap with artificial intelligence, even if it comes at the expense of spreading lies that increase the pain of the relatives of the deceased. This practice occurs on obituary pages, where AI generates information about the deceased using both real and fabricated details — such as Mohney’s supposed military history — to drive traffic and generate advertising revenue.

“There’s a whole new strategy to search rankings,” said SEO expert Chris Silver Smith Fastcompany. “It’s based on getting this information that someone has died and there’s a small increase in traffic, maybe in a specific region, for that person’s name and optimizing and quickly publishing articles about that person to get these dribbles of search traffic.”

Misinformation and fake porn

The AI Incidents website reports dozens of alerts every month about AI-generated incidents or cases of abuse. It has already identified more than 800 complaints. His most recent posts include false reports about the assassination attempt on Donald Trump, disinformation about Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris, and deepfake realistic pornography. involving British politicians.

Concerns about the impact of these creations and their potential to go viral on democratic processes are growing; a survey conducted for European Tech Insights 2024 Report by the Center for Governance of Change (CGC) found that 31% of Europeans believe that AI has already influenced their voting behavior.

“Citizens are increasingly concerned about the role of AI in elections. And while there is still no clear evidence that it has caused substantial changes in election results, the emergence of AI has raised concerns about disinformation and deepfake technology around the world,” said Carlos Luca de Tena, CGC executive director.

“When it comes to creating a fake video or image using generative AI, it’s clear that the AI ​​serves as a medium — a tool — so the onus is on the creator,” Danesi explained. “The main problem is that in most cases it is impossible to identify the creator. For example, the case of fake porn (AI-generated images with pornographic content) has a direct impact on the gender gap, as platforms often andencouraging their use with images of women. The increased volume of such images leads to greater accuracy in mimicking women’s bodies, and the result is greater marginalization and stigmatization of women. Therefore, in the age of misinformation and culture cancellation, education is extremely important. As users, it is imperative that we vet the content we encounter and verify it before engaging with it.”

Danes — member of UNESCO Women4Ethical AI and co-author of report presented at G20 Brazil on algorithmic audits — is also concerned about the effects of disinformation: “An algorithm can play a dual role: one in creating fake news through generative AI, and another in amplifying fake content through search engines or social media algorithms that make it viral. . In the latter case, it is clear that we cannot expect platforms to check every published content; it’s just not feasible.”

Automatic discrimination

Another concern about the misuse of AI is the bias that negatively affects single-parent families90% of which are led by women, within a Scottish benefits system. “While the AI ​​Act includes several provisions aimed at preventing bias (particularly with regard to the requirements that high-risk systems must meet), its lack of regulation regarding civil liability does not provide victims with the means to receive compensation. The same is true for the Digital Services Law, which imposes certain transparency obligations on digital platforms,” ​​explains Danesi.

Defective products

The AI ​​incident page features an open court case regarding a potential defect in a vehicle’s programming that may affect safety. In this context, Danesi explains: “Regarding the reform of the Defective Products Directive, it remains incomplete. The problem lies in the types of damages that can be claimed under the law, as they do not include moral damages, for example. Attacks on privacy or cases of discrimination are excluded from the protection afforded by the directive.”

According to Danesi, these cases highlight the urgent need for legal reforms in the field of civil liability, in light of AI advances. “Consumers are highly exposed to the potential harm that AI can cause. Without clear rules on how to proceed in the face of such harm, individuals are left unprotected. But clear rules of civil liability provide legal certainty, promote innovation and facilitate settlements in the event of an injury,” says the researcher, adding that these rules allow companies to make more informed investment decisions.

The Danes note that the European Union is discussing initiatives aimed at tackling these issues, including the Artificial Intelligence Act, the Digital Services Act – which sets out measures affecting the algorithms of digital platforms, social networks and search engines – the proposed AI Liability Directive and a reform to Product Liability Directive.

“This directive had become obsolete. There was even a debate about the applicability of AI systems, since the definition of a product was based on something physical rather than digital. The amendment expands the product concept to include digitally manufactured files and computer programs. The regulation’s focus is on individual protection, which makes it irrelevant whether the damage comes from a physical or digital product,” she explains.

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