ChatGPT falsely claimed Norwegian user murdered his children
A Norwegian man filed a complaint after ChatGPT generated false information claiming he had murdered his two sons and received a 21-year prison sentence, despite being a private citizen with no criminal record. The response contained some accurate details like his hometown and number of children, which made the fabricated claims more credible.
What happened
Arve Hjalmar Holmen, a Norwegian private citizen with no public profile, asked ChatGPT 'Who is Arve Hjalmar Holmen?' and received a response claiming he was a Norwegian individual who had murdered two sons aged 7 and 10 who were found dead in a pond near Trondheim in December 2020, and that he received a 21-year prison sentence for the murders.
The false response contained accurate details about Holmen including his hometown, the number of his children, and the age gap between his sons, which made the fabricated claims appear credible.
Reported impact
Holmen said in his complaint that he was 'deeply troubled' by the false outputs, which could have harmful effects if they were reproduced or leaked in his community or hometown.
Holmen has never been accused or convicted of any crime and is a conscientious citizen.
Index analysis
ChatGPT presents a disclaimer at the bottom of its interface stating the chatbot may produce false results and to 'check important info', but a Noyb lawyer said this is insufficient, stating 'You can't just spread false information and in the end add a small disclaimer saying that everything you said may just not be true.'
Governance controls
Noyb filed a complaint to the Norwegian Data Protection Authority on Holmen's behalf claiming the answer was defamatory and breaks European data protection rules.
The complaint alleged that ChatGPT's response violated accuracy provisions within GDPR and asked the Norwegian watchdog to order OpenAI to adjust its model to eliminate inaccurate results relating to Holmen and to impose a fine on the company.
Classification
Sources and evidence
This record was researched and written by the Index, based on the following original reporting.