An airline's website chatbot told a grieving passenger something that was not true. The airline said the chatbot was not its problem. A tribunal disagreed.
Ten items. Say your answer out loud before you reveal it.
Read the sentence, guess the meaning of the word in bold, then reveal.
Three terms: take reasonable care · set a precedent · pass the buck. Say the right one, then reveal.
One missing word fits every phrase in the group. Say it, then reveal.
Read each part. After it, answer the quick check from memory, then discuss one question.
In November 2022 a man named Jake Moffatt needed to fly from Vancouver to Toronto because his grandmother had died. Before booking, he went to the Air Canada website and asked the chat window about bereavement fares, the reduced prices some airlines offer for funeral travel.
The chatbot told him that he could buy a ticket at the normal price and apply for the bereavement rate afterwards, within ninety days. He took that at face value. He paid roughly sixteen hundred Canadian dollars for the return trip, flew, and then sent in his claim.
Air Canada said no. A different page on the same website said that bereavement fares could not be claimed after travel. The reduced fare would have cost about nine hundred and fifty dollars, so the gap was not small.
1. Why did Moffatt use the chat window?
2. What did the chatbot tell him he could do?
3. Why did Air Canada refuse his claim?
1. He wanted to ask about reduced bereavement fares before booking a flight to his grandmother's funeral.
2. Buy the ticket at the normal price and claim the bereavement rate afterwards, within ninety days.
3. Another page on its own website said that bereavement fares could not be claimed after the flight.
Moffatt wrote to the airline for weeks. It offered him a small voucher and stayed with its position. He took the case to British Columbia's Civil Resolution Tribunal, which hears small claims, and which is a kind of court you can use without paying for a lawyer.
Air Canada's defence was unusual. It argued that it could not be held responsible for information given by its chatbot, and in effect it described the bot as a separate thing that answered for its own words. The tribunal member, Christopher Rivers, did not accept it. He wrote that it should be obvious to the airline that it was responsible for all the information on its website, and that it made no difference whether that information came from a static page or from a chatbot.
He also found that Air Canada had not taken reasonable care to make sure the chatbot was accurate.
1. Where did Moffatt take his case?
2. What was Air Canada's argument?
3. What did the tribunal member say about static pages and chatbots?
1. To British Columbia's Civil Resolution Tribunal, a small-claims body.
2. That it was not responsible for what its chatbot said, as if the bot answered for itself.
3. That it made no difference: the airline was responsible for all the information on its website, wherever it came from.
In February 2024 the tribunal ordered the airline to pay Moffatt about eight hundred Canadian dollars in total, which included damages, interest and fees. Air Canada said it would comply. Journalists reported slightly different figures for the split, so the exact breakdown is worth checking in the decision itself. The overall size was never the point.
The ruling came from a small-claims tribunal and is not binding on higher courts, so it did not become law. But many companies took notice. It was one of the first public decisions that put a simple question to a business: if you let software speak to your customers, do you stand behind what it says?
The answer in this case was yes, and it did not depend on how clever the software was. It depended on the fact that the customer could not tell the difference between the chatbot and the company, and had no reason to try.
1. About how much did the tribunal order Air Canada to pay?
2. Why is the ruling not binding on higher courts?
3. What question did the case put to businesses?
1. About eight hundred Canadian dollars in total, including damages, interest and fees.
2. It came from a small-claims tribunal, not from a higher court.
3. If software speaks to your customers, do you stand behind what it says?
Before you let an AI tool speak to a customer, a client or a candidate in your name, ask four questions, and ask them in a loop each time you change anything about how it works: who is speaking, what can it promise, who pays if it is wrong, and how will you find out. Together they are the Customer Test.
Each line is something a company could say about its AI tool. Is it taking responsibility, passing the buck, making a promise it may not be able to keep, or setting a sensible limit? Choose, then check.
1. Sensible limit — it says what the tool does and where a human takes over. Nobody is surprised later.
2. Passes the buck — this is, in essence, the argument that failed. The customer cannot tell the tool from the company.
3. Risky promise — a guarantee is a promise. If the tool is wrong even once, the company owes it.
4. Takes responsibility — it accepts the cost and describes the change. It costs less than a tribunal.
5. Passes the buck — the whole point of a chat window is that customers should not have to do that.
6. Sensible limit — a clear rule about what the tool must not commit to.
7. Risky promise — it hands over a commitment the company has not thought through.
8. Takes responsibility — plain, first person, and it names a result.
It is not only chatbots. A drafting tool that writes an email to a client in your name is speaking for you in exactly the same way. Read it before it goes.
A disclaimer helps, but only a little. A line saying that the assistant may make mistakes is honest. It does not make you less responsible for a price it quoted.
Small firms can set limits more easily. With one or two clients you can keep the tool away from anything that sounds like a commitment, and add a human at those points. It costs a few minutes.
Legal and business stories depend on reporting verbs. Each one says something different about how strongly the person spoke, and about whether you agree with them.
Complete each sentence with the best verb from the box. Use each once: ruled · claimed · pointed out · agreed.
1. The tribunal that the airline had not taken reasonable care.
2. The airline that it could not be held responsible for the chatbot.
3. Moffatt that another page of the website said something different.
4. In the end the airline to pay the money it was ordered to pay.
1. ruled — an official decision
2. claimed — a position the writer may not accept
3. pointed out — drew attention to a fact
4. agreed — agreed + to-infinitive
Report each sentence using the verb in brackets and the correct structure.
1. "I did not know about the other page." (Moffatt said...)
2. "You can claim the reduced fare afterwards." (The chatbot told him...)
3. "We will pay." (The airline agreed...)
4. "We did not mislead him." (The airline denied...)
1. Moffatt said that he had not known about the other page. (back-shift to past perfect)
2. The chatbot told him that he could claim the reduced fare afterwards.
3. The airline agreed to pay.
4. The airline denied misleading him. (denied + -ing)
Now report a disagreement from your own work in four sentences, using at least three different reporting verbs.
Three conversations about AI and responsibility. Read the situation, take a moment, and speak. Aim for about a minute each.
Retell the Air Canada case in about a minute to a colleague who has never heard of it. Include what the chatbot said, what the airline argued and what the tribunal decided. Use at least two reporting verbs.
A client asks you to put an AI assistant on their website to answer enquiries from customers. You are cautious. Take them through the four questions of the Customer Test, using their business as the example, and say where you would want a person to take over.
Take Air Canada's side for one minute. Make the strongest honest case that a company should not be held to everything its chatbot says. Then, in thirty seconds, say why you still do not agree with it.