Meta Platforms settled a defamation lawsuit with Robby Starbuck, who claimed that Meta’s artificial intelligence (AI) falsely accused him of participating in the Jan. 6 Capitol riots.
There is no publicly available information on the details of the settlement except that Robby Starbuck, a conservative activist opposed to diversity, equity and inclusion efforts, will work with Meta to remove “ideological and political bias” from the company’s AI.
“Both parties have resolved this matter to our mutual satisfaction. 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,” a joint statement from Meta and Starbuck reads.
“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,” he added.
Meta did not immediately respond to The Hill’s request for comment.
Starbuck on Friday told CNBC’s “Squawk Box” that both himself and Meta saw that this problem could impact other users of the company’s platforms.
“That was always the point of my lawsuit — is fix this for everybody so this doesn’t become a massive, you know, really terrible story in the future where AI affects elections in ways that no one is comfortable with,” he said.
Starbuck dodged a question from host Andrew Ross Sorkin about the settlement, stating that he is still figuring out the details of the collaboration with the tech giant.
“Delivering fairness for consumers is the outcome I’ve always wanted and I’m pleased to do the work to make that a reality,” Starbuck wrote on social media. “As we move into a future where AI dominates many parts of our world, now you know that you have an unshakable voice at the table to advocate for ideological fairness.”
Starbuck filed the suit against Meta on April 29 and originally demanded more than $5 million from the company.
On April 30, Joel Kaplan, Meta’s chief global affairs officer, apologized publicly over the matter.
“Robby – I watched your video – this is unacceptable. This is clearly not how our AI should operate. We’re sorry for the results it shared about you and that the fix we put in place didn’t address the underlying problem,” he posted on the social media platform X.
