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ChatGPT Led to a Man’s Near-Fatal Health Crisis, Lawsuit Claims
A Florida pastor sued OpenAI on Wednesday, claiming that its chatbot, ChatGPT, had offered him “extremely dangerous medical recommendations” that led to delayed care for a life-threatening pulmonary embolism last year. The lawsuit claims that ChatGPT had assured Scott Winters that the early warning signs of his health crisis were “not something dangerous,” and had dissuaded him from seeking medical advice, instead telling him to trust that “God did not design your body to endlessly fail.”
The suit, filed in the Superior Court of California in San Francisco, accuses OpenAI and its chief executive, Sam Altman, of negligence and the “unauthorized practice of medicine,” pointing to moments when the chatbot offered Mr. Winters diagnoses and treatment plans and encouraged him to ignore pleas from friends and family to seek medical care.
The bot’s safety features — which are designed to encourage users with health questions to see a professional and to end conversations when there are clear signs of a medical crisis — did not work reliably, the suit further says. Mr. Winters’ case appears to be the first to claim that a chatbot’s health advice harmed someone seeking guidance about a medical condition.
UK Government Scraps Plans for Digital ID Cards Under New Prime Minister
Homeland Security Today reported:
The U.K.’s incoming prime minister Andy Burnham has confirmed the U.K. government is scrapping a controversial digital ID card scheme announced last year by the country’s previous leader. The Burnham administration said the savings from the scrapped ID cards program will fund a tax cut aimed at cutting household electricity bills amid the rising costs of living.
The newly appointed finance minister, John Healy, said the changes aim to bring some “breathing room on bills, and provide some reassurance this winter.” The plan to roll out digital identity cards was introduced by the former prime minister Keir Starmer, who argued that state-issued IDs would crack down on migrants working illegally and would modernize access to government services.
The national ID card system would have cost the government £1.8 billion ($2.4 billion) over three years, but that figure came under dispute as money to fund the scheme was allegedly never allocated.
What Happened When Meta Used A.I. To Ban Accounts on Facebook and Instagram
The notification startled Camille Hanson awake one night this March. Her Facebook and Instagram accounts, where she had nearly one million followers running a business with her husband teaching English to nonnative speakers, had been flagged for deletion.
Meta said she had violated the community guidelines for fraud and deception. “I’m just an English teacher,” Ms. Hanson, 40, remembered thinking. She was flummoxed by the fraud and deception claims. “What am I doing wrong?” she wondered. The notice said she could appeal, so she clicked the button to begin the process. A week later, she got another notification: Her appeal was denied.
“All your information will be permanently deleted,” Meta’s response read. “You cannot request another review of this decision.” It was like having “an actual physical business, and somebody just shuts down your office or your storefront,” Ms. Hanson’s husband, Calvin, 42, said in an interview from their home in Portugal.
What happened to the Hansons was a case of artificial intelligence gone wrong. The technology is increasingly responsible for deciding which accounts broke Meta’s content rules while also managing the appeals for those decisions.
Spokane Firefighter Lawsuit Over Vaccine Mandate Heads to Trial, City Approves $200k for Legal Fees
What started as a dispute over Spokane’s 2021 COVID-19 vaccine mandate has become a years-long federal court cThe firefighters argue the city violated their First and Fourteenth Amendment rights after saying their religious exemptions were approved, but they were not given meaningful accommodations.
The city has denied those claims in court. “We all had accepted religious exemptions… The accommodations were all non-accommodations. You can quit. You can resign. You can be laid off. You can retire. You can take leave without pay indefinitely… That’s the kind of foundation of the lawsuit. The accommodations were not real and meaningful,” said Spokane Fire Department Lieutenant Jhar Fuller.
The case has already taken several turns through the federal court system. A federal district court initially dismissed the firefighters’ claims. But last year, a federal appeals court said some of the firefighters’ claims should move forward, sending the case back to district court. There is currently a trial scheduled for next March.
Google Hit With $1 Billion Fine for Abusing Its Power in Europe
In a decision likely to intensify trans-Atlantic trade tensions, European Union regulators on Thursday hit Google with a $1 billion fine for illegally undercutting competition through its dominance as a search engine. President Trump has previously threatened to retaliate against the European Union for what he views as the unfair targeting of American technology companies.
The Google decision comes when he is weighing a new batch of tariffs on the European Union and other major trading partners. In explaining Thursday’s fine of 890 million euros, regulators in Brussels said Google had used its position as the world’s largest search engine to unfairly boost its services in areas like shopping, travel, games and language translation.
Google displayed its own services more prominently at the top of search results, while relegating competing services farther down the page, according to regulators. The European Commission, which conducted the investigation, also concluded that the tech giant used unfair restrictions on its Google Play app store that prevent app developers from communicating with users, or conducting transactions that could reduce the fees Google can collect.
France Becomes First European Union Country to Ban Social Media for Kids Under 15
France has become the first country in the European Union to ban social media for children under the age of 15, after its parliament overwhelmingly approved landmark legislation by 279 votes to 81. Under the new law, children under 15 will be prevented from creating new social media accounts on platforms such as TikTok and Snapchat from September, while existing accounts will be blocked from January 2027, according to the legislation.
The law will also ban students from having phones in high schools from next year, and require social platforms to introduce age verification checks. Students were already prohibited from having phones in French elementary and middle schools. “France is leading the way in Europe when it comes to protecting our children and teenagers,” President Emmanuel Macron said, hailing the legislation’s passage as a landmark moment.
Earlier this year, France’s public health watchdog concluded that social media had harmful effects on teenagers’ mental health, especially girls. Macron has made online child safety a defining issue of the final years of his presidency, and the ban will likely be one of the last major domestic reforms he ushers through.
