Airline chatbot invented a bereavement fare policy the airline had to honor in tribunal
At a Glance
- Significant disruption. Hours of lost work, reputational embarrassment, or measurable financial impact under $10k.
Independent project · aggregated from public reports and may be unverified — see the primary source below · not affiliated with or endorsed by any company or product named.
What Happened
Air Canada's website chatbot told passenger Jake Moffatt he could book a full-price ticket and claim a bereavement discount retroactively within 90 days. That policy did not exist: bereavement fares had to be requested before travel. When the airline denied his claim, Moffatt took the case to the British Columbia Civil Resolution Tribunal (Moffatt v. Air Canada, 2024 BCCRT 149). The airline argued the chatbot was effectively a separate entity responsible for its own statements. The tribunal rejected that, found negligent misrepresentation, and ordered Air Canada to pay CAD 812.02 (fare difference plus interest and fees). The underlying model vendor was never disclosed, filed here as vendor-unknown. Sources: the tribunal decision on CanLII (2024 BCCRT 149); The Guardian, Feb 16, 2024; American Bar Association Business Law Today, Feb 2024.
Case Record
More Cases
Sports Illustrated published product reviews under fake AI-generated authors with AI headshots
Futurism reported in November 2023 that Sports Illustrated published product-review content under fabricated author personas — for example 'Drew Ortiz,' whose headshot was bought from an AI-portrait site and who had no real existence — supplied by third-party vendor AdVon Commerce. After inquiries, the fake authors vanished from the site. Publisher The Arena Group denied the articles themselves were AI-written but acknowledged pseudonyms; the episode damaged SI's credibility.
New York City's official 'MyCity' business chatbot told entrepreneurs they could break the law
NYC's MyCity chatbot, launched October 2023 to help business owners, was found by The Markup (March 2024) to give dangerously inaccurate legal guidance — telling users that landlords could refuse Section 8 voucher holders, that employers could take a cut of workers' tips, and that there were no limits on residential rent, all illegal under NYC/NY law. The city initially kept the bot online with a disclaimer; it was ultimately taken down.
Mississippi federal judge removed all four lawyers from a case after both sides filed AI-hallucinated citations
In the contract dispute between Tom Withers III and the City of Aberdeen, both legal teams filed briefs containing fabricated legal citations produced by generative AI. On 8 June 2026 US District Judge Sharion Aycock of the Northern District of Mississippi issued a sanction order finding Rule 11 violations and removed all four attorneys from the case: Kathleen Wilson, Shauncey Hunter Ridgeway, Mark McClinton and Kathryn Young Williams. Two of them, Ridgeway and McClinton, were barred from appearing before Northern District of Mississippi courts for two years. Judge Aycock wrote that their practice of blindly relying on technology resulted in the hallucinatory citations in their filings, and at a January 2026 hearing attorney Kathleen Wilson testified she did not know AI could hallucinate sources.