Advertising Board’s “We Asked ChatGPT” Decisions

Recent breakthroughs in technology have also started to have an impact on advertising. Accordingly, we are encountering statements in various advertisements where AI can be seen to confirm or support the claim in the advertisement and promotion.

As known, on 13 September 2023, the Advertising Board (Board) announced for the first time that it had taken into its agenda advertisements created using artificial intelligence together with behaviors that victimize citizens and manipulate consumer perception. In the past weeks, the Board published a bulletin and decided that 3 advertisements created using ChatGPT could mislead consumers.

In this context, as a result of the Board’s review, the claims in the advertisements containing the following statements were found to be problematic:

• “According to ChatGPT, … is the biggest fashion retail brand in Turkey”
• “We asked ChatGPT and got the only right answer! Meet … now for all your fast, secure and cost-effective logistics transactions to any point in the world.”
• “According to ChatGPT, the most popular chatbot based on artificial intelligence, Turkey’s most iconic private television channel is …!”

In the review conducted by the Board, it was stated that the answers given by ChatGPT were not up-to-date, precise, objective and verifiable. In some decisions, it was also emphasized that the answer could change if the questions were asked in different ways. In addition, it was stated that these statements did not include research results obtained from the relevant departments of universities or accredited or independent research, testing and evaluation organizations; and it was once again emphasized that artificial intelligence-based questioning is not safe and will not be accepted by the Board and the advertisements were suspended.

As seen, the Board decided that the advertisements in subject, which were created with data that is not up-to-date and accurate and not based on objective research results, violate the legislation as they contain expressions that contain the perception of superiority over competing products or companies. Accordingly, the Board revealed that the data obtained through any artificial intelligence program, specifically the popular artificial intelligence application ChatGPT, is not accurate.

You can reach the bulletin containing the relevant decisions of the Advertising Board here (only available in Turkish).