air canada argued to a tribunal that its own chatbot was a separate legal entity.

the condition is a surface that can now make binding statements without anyone reviewing them. a passenger asked the airline's website about bereavement fares and the chatbot described a refund policy that did not exist. when the passenger tried to claim it the airline refused, arguing among other things that the customer should have read the real policy the bot had linked to. canada's civil resolution tribunal rejected that in february 2024 and ordered the airline to pay 650.88 canadian dollars plus interest and fees. the money is not the cost, the finding is: everything on your surface speaks with your authority, including the thing somebody added in an afternoon because a vendor said it would deflect tickets. you cannot put a widget on the front of house and hold it at arm's length from the back of house. the gap between what the surface says and what the machinery does gets discovered by exactly one person, the buyer, at the worst possible moment, and now occasionally by a tribunal.

the fake fix is a longer disclaimer, which is a sentence nobody reads defending a promise the interface already made. go and read what your own interface tells people about refunds, timelines, availability and price, then go and check whether the people behind it can deliver that. where the two disagree, either the machinery wins or the promise changes. there is no third option.

do this: make the surface promise only what the handoff can keep. not this: install an assistant and hope nobody tests it.