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Armed American Radio Host Sues OpenAI For Defamation

Walters claims to be a victim of an AI “hallucination”.

Ryan Hedrick

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A photo of Mark Walters

Mark Walters, the host of the Armed American Radio show distributed nationwide by Salem Radio Networks, has sued OpenAI. He claims that the ChatGPT program developed by OpenAI wrongly indicted him for stealing money from the Second Amendment Foundation.

Walters claims to be a victim of an AI “hallucination”. This happens when technology creates false events and results without any factual basis. Walters is a syndicated radio host who says that he was never mentioned in the legal case of Second Amendment Foundation v. Robert Ferguson. Additionally, he has never been employed by a nonprofit organization dedicated to defending gun rights.

Walters’ attorney, John Monroe, expressed his client’s grievance: “OpenAI has defamed my client by fabricating outrageous falsehoods about him.”

According to the New York Post, Open AI is facing its first-ever defamation lawsuit. The lawsuit was filed in the Superior Court of Gwinnett County State of Georgia and stems from an incident involving journalist Fred Riehl.

Riehl had engaged with ChatGPT, an AI developed by Open AI while researching the Second Amendment Foundation case against Washington State Attorney Robert Ferguson. Riehl shared a URL to the complaint on the Second Amendment Foundation website and asked ChatGPT to provide a summary of the case.

According to ChatGPT, Alan Gottlieb, the founder and executive vice president of the Second Amendment Foundation (SAF), filed a legal complaint against Mark Walters. The complaint accuses Walters, who was the organization’s treasurer and chief financial officer, of committing fraud and embezzlement by using funds for his personal expenses without permission or repayment.

It further accuses Walters of manipulating financial records and bank statements to hide his actions and failing to provide accurate and timely financial reports and disclosures to the SAF’s leadership. The AI-generated response clarified that the plaintiff was seeking various remedies, including the removal of Walters from his position as a member of the SAF’s board of directors.

The lawsuit filed against OpenAI claims that every factual statement in the summary related to Walters is untrue. Riehl further interrogated ChatGPT about its summary, specifically regarding Walters’ involvement in the lawsuit against Ferguson. In response, the AI-generated text provided a paragraph from the complaint, which described Walters as an individual residing in Georgia who has served as the Treasurer and Chief Financial Officer of SAF since at least 2012. The paragraph stated that Walters has access to SAF’s financial records and is responsible for maintaining them and providing financial reports to the board of directors.

However, the lawsuit against OpenAI asserts that none of the information provided by ChatGPT is present in the actual complaint it was asked to summarize. The lawsuit alleges that ChatGPT’s responses are entirely fabricated and bear no resemblance to the genuine complaint. It accuses ChatGPT of making false and malicious statements about Walters, which were published and damaged his reputation, exposing him to public disdain and ridicule. The suit claims that OpenAI’s dissemination of the allegations to Riehl constitutes the publication of defamatory material about Walters.

As a result, Walters is seeking both general and punitive damages, the specific amount of which will be determined during the trial. Additionally, he is requesting reimbursement for the legal expenses incurred in bringing the case to trial before a jury.

Armed American Radio is a radio show that airs on Sundays from 8:00-11:00 PM ET and has been on the air since 2009.

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Tim Conway Jr.: Social Media Quickens the News Cycle for Stories Like the Baltimore Bridge

“A good buddy of mine, he sent me that literally about 40 minutes after it happened. The video and the story. That’s crazy.”

Barrett News Media

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A photo of Tim Conway Jr. and the KFI AM-640 logo
(Photo: KFI AM-640)

Social media video of the Francis Scott Key Bridge collapsing in the Baltimore harbor made the rounds Tuesday morning. KFI AM-640 host Tim Conway Jr. believes the way we learned about the tragedy shapes the coverage surrounding it.

While discussing the happenings with KFI reporter Steve Gregory, who has a long history of covering breaking news events, Conway Jr. noted that not only did social media help confirm the validity of the story, but seeing the images spread so quickly shined a spotlight on how fast the news cycle moves now.

“What a great advantage of having Twitter and Facebook and Instagram and then TikTok, all these social media is when something like that happens you know, because it happens so late we would have not ever heard about it or seen anything until the morning news,” said Conway Jr.

“But now with social media you instantly know. A good buddy of mine, he sent me that literally about 40 minutes after it happened. The video and the story. That’s crazy.”

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Michael Riedel: Once You Start Talking About People’s Personal Lives, There’s No Going Back

“If you go down that path, then you’re headed towards National Enquirer territory and as a journalist, you can never really come back from that.”

Barrett News Media

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A photo of Michael Riedel and the 710 WOR logo
(Photo: 710 WOR)

710 WOR morning host Michael Riedel got spent years working as a Broadway reporter and columnist before shifting to the New York news/talker. He has one guiding principle for the radio show that he has kept from his writing days.

Riedel was discussing his previous role at the New York Post with colleague Mark Simone on his midday program and said there are just some things you shouldn’t talk about.

“I got all the backstage stories when I was writing the column about Broadway for the New York Post. You know, celebrities, the leading lady fighting with the producer, lawsuits,” Riedel shared. “But I always drew the line at people’s private lives. Because I thought if you go down that path, then you’re headed towards National Enquirer territory and as a journalist, you can never really come back from that.

“If somebody filed a sexual harassment suit against somebody, I covered those. That’s fine. I mean, as soon as a suit is filed, it’s a matter of public record. I could get into it, but I never got into who’s sleeping with whom and who’s doing this thing. Not to say I didn’t know, and I loved hearing about it, but I drew the line at people’s personal lives when I wrote about them.”

Simone joked that he admired Riedel’s ability to converse with celebrities and know “exactly what that guy would be fascinated by.”

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Howie Carr: MSNBC Hosts Have Too Many Skeletons in Closet to Criticize Ronna McDaniel

“Al Sharpton…is he offended? Brian Williams? Is he still ’emeritus,’ right? How about all the Dateline NBC people who put the bomb in the truck? Mike Barnicle? Is he offended?”

Barrett News Media

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(Photo: The Howie Carr Show)

NBC News, MSNBC, and Ronna McDaniel have been at the forefront of the news media cycle after her hiring and subsequent removal from the network. Howie Carr believes the entire ordeal is an exercise in hypocrisy.

During The Howie Carr Show, the Boston-based host shared his belief that the reaction from MSNBC hosts like Joe Scarborough, Rachel Maddow, and Lawrence O’Donnell about the hiring of McDaniel reeks of dishonesty.

“Talk about hypocrisy here. NBC is now claiming to be journalists? They’re offended by Rhonda McDaniel, because she makes stuff up,” said Carr.

“Al Sharpton…is he offended? Brian Williams? Is he still ’emeritus,’ right? How about all the Dateline NBC people who put the bomb in the truck? Mike Barnicle? Is he offended? Chuck Todd, former coat-holder for Tom Harkin whose wife made millions working for Bernie Sanders, another very upstanding statesman.

“Joy Reid, who was caught with all the anti-gay, believe anti-Muslim tweets, too? She said she was hacked by a time traveler and asked the FBI to investigate it. And Lawrence O’Donnell, the guy who made up the Deutsche Bank thing that had to apologize? Rachel Maddow, who group came up with Trump’s income taxes return like it was a big scoop and had already put it in a book 20 years earlier? Did Joe Scarborough denounced him from his old congressional office in Fort Walton Beach, Florida where they found a dead girl? They’re appalled by Ronna McDaniel. Appalled.”

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