In his initial filing, Starbuck—an outspoken critic of DEI initiatives—said that a Meta chatbot, Meta AI, had falsely accused him of being a “White nationalist.”
Conservative social media personality Robby Starbuck and Meta have agreed to settle a defamation lawsuit centering on political bias and artificial intelligence-driven misinformation.
According to FOX Business, as part of the agreement, Starbuck will serve as a consultant to Meta, collaborating with its Product Policy team to reduce the risk of artificial intelligence “hallucinations” and ensure that the company’s chatbots present more neutral political perspectives.
Starbuck filed his suit against Meta in Delaware Superior Court in April.
In his initial filing, Starbuck—an outspoken critic of DEI initiatives—said that a Meta chatbot, Meta AI, had falsely accused him of being a “White nationalist.” It also allegedly responded to further queries with inaccurate information, stating that Starbuck was arrested on January 6 and is currently being sued for defamation.
Representatives for both Starbuck and Meta have since posited the terms of the settlement as a satisfying outcome for all involved.
“Both parties have resolved this matter to our mutual satisfaction,” Meta and Starbuck said in a joint statement.
“Since engaging on these important issues with Robby, Meta has made tremendous strides to improve the accuracy of Meta AI and mitigate ideological and political bias. Building on that work, Meta and Robby Starbuck will work collaboratively in the coming months to continue to find ways to address issues of ideological and political bias and minimize the risk that the model returns hallucinations in response to user queries,” they said.
FOX News notes that Meta has, in the past, conceded that its large language models—or LLMs, deep-learning algorithms that can mimic written text—are vulnerable to bias.
“It’s well-known that all leading LLMs have had issues with bias—specifically, they historically have leaned left when it comes to debated political and social topics,” Meta wrote in an April blog post. “This is due to the types of training data available on the internet, our goal is to remove bias from our AI models and to make sure that Llama can understand and articulate both sides of a contentious issue.”
Starbuck said he now hopes that his new appointment at Meta will have industry-wide repercussions.
“I think a tech leader like Meta working with me is a critically important step to producing a product that’s fair to everyone,” he said. “I think what we do to improve AI training could become an industry standard and I also think we’ll set an example for the entire industry when it comes to ensuring fairness. I’m laser focused on that and ensuring that the highest quality training materials are used.”
“I’m extraordinarily pleased with how Meta and I resolved this issue. Resolving this is going to result in big wins that I believe will set an example for ethical AI across the industry. I look forward to continuing our engagement as a voice for conservatives to ensure that we’re always treated fairly by AI,” he said.
Sources
Robby Starbuck, Meta settle lawsuit over AI chatbot defamation claim
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