Pundit ClaimsAI claims by Gary Marcus and Ed Zitron, with the evidence

Gary Marcus Marcus on AI Published

Maybe Section 230 doesn’t shield AI companies from liability, after all

We recorded 6 claims from this post. 3 were checked against evidence. 3 can’t be checked. 4 more are held. Read the post at its source.

Claims from this post (6)

In the order they appear in the post. Each quotation is the speaker’s words in this post. A label such as “Supported” or “Can’t be checked” is the claim’s current assessment; its page has the evidence and the reasons.

  1. Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid

    Observation

    “Instead, let’s talk Section 230 — and why it might not protect AI companies as muuch as they might like..”

    Our reading: Section 230 may not protect AI companies from liability as much as they would like.

    No horizon

    Qualifier: under Section 230

  2. Assessment: SupportedSaid

    Observation

    “His company did however recently support state law in Illinois that “would shield AI labs from liability in cases where AI models are used to cause serious societal harms, such as death or serious injury of 100 or more people or at least $1 billion in property damage”– pretty much the opposite of what he said to Senator Durbin in his deceitful, lie-filled testimony.”

    Our reading: OpenAI recently supported an Illinois state law that would shield AI labs from liability in cases where AI models are used to cause serious societal harms, which Marcus calls pretty much the opposite of what Altman told Senator Durbin in his 2023 testimony.

    No horizon Evidence as of

    Limitation: This outcome applies to the legislative-support proposition, not the allegation of deceit.

  3. Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid

    Recommendation or value judgment

    “I wish them luck — lots of it.”

    Our reading: Marcus wishes the bipartisan sponsors of the bill to sunset Section 230 a great deal of luck, expressing his hope that it succeeds.

    No horizon

  4. Assessment: UnresolvedSaid

    Observation

    “Because essentially all their software has a tendency to fabricate fairly regularly and even defame people and to sometimes give bad medical information, and so on.”

    Our reading: Essentially all LLM providers' software fabricates fairly regularly, sometimes defaming people and giving bad medical information.

    No horizon Evidence as of

    Limitation: Difficult and adversarial benchmarks cannot be treated as random samples of everyday use.

  5. Assessment: UnresolvedSaid

    Conditional forecast

    “If American courts were to rule similarly, or if Congress made that the law of the land, all the LLM providers would be in deep, deep trouble.”

    Our reading: If US courts or Congress held companies liable for their chatbots' output, all LLM providers would be in deep trouble.

    No deadline stated Evidence as of

    Only if: if US courts rule that chatbot output is the company's own speech, or Congress legislates so

  6. Assessment: Can’t be checkedSaid

    Conditional forecast

    “It might actually force the tech industry to get its act together, to try to find a sounder foundation for AI, in which hallucinations weren’t baked in.”

    Our reading: If AI companies were held liable for their systems' output, it might force the industry to seek a sounder AI foundation without baked-in hallucinations.

    No horizon

    Only if: if AI companies were held liable for their systems' output

Held from this post (4)

These records did not pass every check, so nothing about them is published. Held is not a finding.