Crypto marketplace Coinbase is under fire after sending out an AI-generated breaking news alert that Norway’s national men’s soccer team had clinched a spot in the quarter finals of the ongoing FIFA World Cup by beating Brazil 3-2 — before the game even started.
While Norway did eventually beat Brazil — with a final score of 2-1, contrary to what Coinbase’s AI claimed — the glaring error didn’t sit well with netizens, particularly considering Coinbase had struck a partnership with prediction markets app Kalshi. A hallucinated news alert could’ve caused bettors to lose out, a panic triggered by an entirely made-up World Cup match outcome.
It’s also baffling considering how long companies have been dealing with this exact problem. Since the dawn of large language model-based tools like ChatGPT, the bots have been confidently telling lies and fabricating facts. That’s despite hundreds of billions of dollars being spent on the tech’s development.
Combined with a growing obsession over prediction markets like Kalshi and Polymarket, it’s a fatal mix that could trigger plenty of chaos, as experts warn of a surge in gambling addiction.
