Consumer Reports wrote a comment in support of the Federal Trade Commission’s settlement with Rytr, a generative-AI company who sold a product that allowed customers to create unlimited reviews for any product based on limited prompts.
CR argued that the case was in the public interest given the torrent of online review fraud that makes it difficult for consumers to get reliable information about the products they buy. While generative-AI has many beneficial uses, Rytr’s product was likely to lead to inaccurate and misleading testimonials, and was easily gameable by bad actors seeking to generate a high volume of fake reviews to skew public perception of their products or services.