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German ruling declares Google liable for false answers in AI Overviews

the-decoder.com

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Re: German ruling declares Google liable for false answers in AI Overviews

#61

Post by asdfaoeu »

Kina wrote: post #8
tristanj wrote: post #5

Anyone know if this ruling applies to answers generated by AI chatbots, such as ChatGPT/Gemini/Claude? All three have the ability to perform a web search, then compose a reply based on the search results. Pretty much the exact thing that Google AI Overview does. This ruling may make them liable for false answers.

> Pretty much the exact thing that Google AI Overview does. No, the article implies the court’s logic is that the AI search results are presented as search results and that’s a big part of why they are liable. It seems like the court (again, according to the article) does not find the disclaimers that Google has slapped on the AI results compelling because again, it chose to represent these as a summary of search res…

This ruling was about search clearly, however, there's definitely ways implications for chatbots too.

Re: German ruling declares Google liable for false answers in AI Overviews

#62

Post by wombatpm »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #36
Swizec wrote: post #18

Good. The true mark of AGI is when a company accepts liability and doesn’t bury “for entertainment purposes only” deep in their TOS. Same as it works with employees. Same for self-driving. Your car is not self-driving until it accepts liability and you count as just a passenger. But watch as Germany soon loses AI Google results.

Why would that mean AGI? You can get into liability-accepting territory by restricting scope, a lot easier than by making your AI smarter. Self-driving cars don't need to be particularly good for companies to make models where they accept liability in some circumstances, and the cars refuse to drive in other circumstances.

Wasn’t Tesla found to have FSD disengaging just before a crash so that the driver would be at fault?

Re: German ruling declares Google liable for false answers in AI Overviews

#63

Post by heathrow83829 »

Swizec wrote: post #18

Good. The true mark of AGI is when a company accepts liability and doesn’t bury “for entertainment purposes only” deep in their TOS. Same as it works with employees. Same for self-driving. Your car is not self-driving until it accepts liability and you count as just a passenger. But watch as Germany soon loses AI Google results.

at the scale that google is at, it doesn't make an ounce of sense to hold a company liable for a potential mistruth. what if there's a 1/1000 chance of some error, then the company could be sued millions of times per day.

down vote all you want, but I firmly believe this is an example where the user needs to use some judgement on the information they receive and have some critical thinking skills. google would be right to remove all AI results from germany.

Re: German ruling declares Google liable for false answers in AI Overviews

#66

Post by eqvinox »

MichaelZuo wrote: post #32
Swizec wrote: post #18

Good. The true mark of AGI is when a company accepts liability and doesn’t bury “for entertainment purposes only” deep in their TOS. Same as it works with employees. Same for self-driving. Your car is not self-driving until it accepts liability and you count as just a passenger. But watch as Germany soon loses AI Google results.

Nearly the entire American tech industry has been super heavily selected for people who undervalue the legal language with crazy implications buried everywhere. Otherwise most of it would not even exist. Everyone would have continued paying out the nose to the IBM’s of the world year after year (who had unusual willingness to sign short ambiguously worded custom contracts to their own disadvantage, if paid vast amoun…

> Nearly the entire American tech industry has been super heavily selected for people who undervalue the legal language with crazy implications buried everywhere.

A lot of people in IT seem to think law and contracts are in a sense mathematical. They aren't; they're more like a high school book report - to be interpreted, as objectively as possible, but definitely also establishing the intent behind the letters.

Particularly contracts - no, you can't trick your way into things in most cases. "Surprising" clauses are invalid in most legal systems, in particular if one party to the contract is a layperson.

Re: German ruling declares Google liable for false answers in AI Overviews

#67

Post by gmerc »

heathrow83829 wrote: post #63
Swizec wrote: post #18

Good. The true mark of AGI is when a company accepts liability and doesn’t bury “for entertainment purposes only” deep in their TOS. Same as it works with employees. Same for self-driving. Your car is not self-driving until it accepts liability and you count as just a passenger. But watch as Germany soon loses AI Google results.

at the scale that google is at, it doesn't make an ounce of sense to hold a company liable for a potential mistruth. what if there's a 1/1000 chance of some error, then the company could be sued millions of times per day. down vote all you want, but I firmly believe this is an example where the user needs to use some judgement on the information they receive and have some critical thinking skills. google would be rig…

So scale of harm creates immunity, is that the argument ?

Re: German ruling declares Google liable for false answers in AI Overviews

#68

Post by Swizec »

heathrow83829 wrote: post #63
Swizec wrote: post #18

Good. The true mark of AGI is when a company accepts liability and doesn’t bury “for entertainment purposes only” deep in their TOS. Same as it works with employees. Same for self-driving. Your car is not self-driving until it accepts liability and you count as just a passenger. But watch as Germany soon loses AI Google results.

at the scale that google is at, it doesn't make an ounce of sense to hold a company liable for a potential mistruth. what if there's a 1/1000 chance of some error, then the company could be sued millions of times per day. down vote all you want, but I firmly believe this is an example where the user needs to use some judgement on the information they receive and have some critical thinking skills. google would be rig…

> at the scale that google is at, it doesn't make an ounce of sense to hold a company liable for a potential mistruth

If a Google employee (like a support agent) says a mistruth, the company is liable and you can sue. They can’t just say “hihi oopsies our support agents are useless”

Re: German ruling declares Google liable for false answers in AI Overviews

#69

Post by Frieren »

missedthecue wrote: post #64

If companies can be held liable (in spite of very visible disclaimers, ToS, and usage policies) for the output of non-deterministic software, isn't this just a soft ban on the deployment of non-deterministic software?

> (in spite of very visible disclaimers, ToS, and usage policies)

If you sell food, in a food stall, labeled as food and you add a disclaimer that it is toxic and will make you sick. You are still selling toxic food and you are liable for it.

Google is pretending to give answers to your questions. They offer you a service about answering questions. And then they add a disclaimer "we do not answer questions just write bullshit". That is still fraud and Google should be liable for it.

> isn't this just a soft ban on the deployment of non-deterministic software?

Tetris is non-deterministic and it is not banned like millions of other programs. I do not follow you.

Re: German ruling declares Google liable for false answers in AI Overviews

#70

Post by em-bee »

heathrow83829 wrote: post #63
Swizec wrote: post #18

Good. The true mark of AGI is when a company accepts liability and doesn’t bury “for entertainment purposes only” deep in their TOS. Same as it works with employees. Same for self-driving. Your car is not self-driving until it accepts liability and you count as just a passenger. But watch as Germany soon loses AI Google results.

at the scale that google is at, it doesn't make an ounce of sense to hold a company liable for a potential mistruth. what if there's a 1/1000 chance of some error, then the company could be sued millions of times per day. down vote all you want, but I firmly believe this is an example where the user needs to use some judgement on the information they receive and have some critical thinking skills. google would be rig…

the user needs to use some judgement on the information they receive and have some critical thinking skills

how?

errors can be so subtle that it is not possible to recognize them unless you spend an hour researching every fact presented. at that point, what's the benefit of AI? nobody is going to do that.

google would be right to remove all AI results from germany

i'd consider that a win.

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