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Lionsgate recalled a trailer for the film 'Megalopolis' after it was discovered to contain fabricated, AI-generated quotes attributed to prominent film critics. The quotes, which falsely criticized the director's past work, were generated by a consultant using AI. The studio apologized to the affected parties and terminated its relationship with the consultant responsible for the vetting error.
Lionsgate pulled the trailer for "Megalopolis" after it was discovered to contain fake quotes from well-known film critics, generated by AI. The quotes falsely criticized Francis Ford Coppola's previous films. The incident was attributed to an error in vetting by marketing consultant Eddie Egan. Lionsgate has since parted ways with Egan and apologized to Coppola and the critics affected by the fabricated content.
Domain classification, causal taxonomy, severity scores, and national security assessments were LLM-classified and may contain errors.
AI systems that inadvertently generate or spread incorrect or deceptive information, which can lead to inaccurate beliefs in users and undermine their autonomy. Humans that make decisions based on false beliefs can experience physical, emotional or material harms
Also classified as
The marketing consultant over-relied on ChatGPT for factual research, failing to verify the generated quotes before publication.
The AI system generated false and fabricated quotes attributed to real critics, which were then distributed to the public in a movie trailer.
AI system
Due to a decision or action made by an AI system
Unintentional
Due to an unexpected outcome from pursuing a goal
Post-deployment
Occurring after the AI model has been trained and deployed
The incident was triggered by ChatGPT generating fabricated quotes (hallucinations) which was an unintentional outcome of the consultant's query.
Added categories peak at 2: Minor (Epistemic Harm, Direct)
A marketing consultant used ChatGPT to generate fake critic quotes for a movie trailer, resulting in a commercial recall. This incident represents a commercial vetting failure and AI hallucination issue with negligible national security implications.
The AI system, ChatGPT, acted as an assistant to the marketing consultant, generating text based on user prompts but requiring human oversight and verification which was neglected.
Risk Level 3: Limited Risk. The system involved is a chatbot (ChatGPT) used to generate content, which falls under limited risk applications requiring transparency about AI-generated content.
The AI was used as a writing assistant to generate promotional copy and negative criticisms based on user prompts.
The report provides clear, direct evidence of the AI's role, the specific fabricated outputs, the studio's response, and independent verification of the AI's behavior by Variety.
None
Technology
AI Hallucination
ChatGPT generated plausible-sounding but fabricated critic quotes.
Lack of Source Verification
The AI model did not verify generated quotes against actual historical texts.
Data Inputs
Biased Prompting
Prompting for negative reviews forced the AI to fabricate negative quotes.
Human Factors
Overreliance on AI Output
The consultant trusted AI-generated quotes without verifying original sources.
Negligent Fact-Checking
The consultant failed to verify quotes before incorporating them in the trailer.
Process and Methods
Inadequate Vetting Process
Lionsgate lacked a rigorous workflow to fact-check promotional materials.
Absence of Verification Protocol
No process was in place to match quotes against actual published reviews.
Management
Inadequate Quality Control
Lionsgate management did not enforce strict verification on promotional assets.
Poor Vendor Oversight
Management trusted the independent consultant without auditing their methods.
Regulatory Environment
Lack of AI Content Standards
No industry regulations governed the use of AI-generated content in marketing.
AI system involved
Identified by automated extraction; can differ from the alleged developers above.
