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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

#71

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?

Where did it say the liability only applied to non-deterministic software?

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

#73

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?

no, just a ban on using non-deterministic software for situations where deterministic responses are expected.

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

#74
post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ?

Did we not already see that with the financial sector in 2008?

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

#75
post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ?

Too big to fail. Lol.

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

#76
post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ?

[dead]

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

#77

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?

What to do if the software automatically and wrongly libels you on a public search engine?

Honestly I can understand the ruling, but the side effects might be severe.

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

#78
post #58

I agree with the ruling, but this makes me wonder if it will be possible to have any AI agent at all if it's consistently applied. After all, if I can get ChatGPT or Claude to say something false that should count too, right?

In normal flow yes, but likely not if you intentionally entrap it to say something wrong.

A disclaimer and couched language will probably fly through. And it's going to matter what expectations an user could reasonably have, too.

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

#79
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…

That is a false dichotomy. The solution to failed laws and regulations is not crime and corruption. The solution is to hold the policial and business leadership accountable; to fix the laws and regulations.

The entire American tech industry has exported Americas predatory, parasitic, and unethical consumer laws (the majority of which are ghost written by the wealthy and corporate legal teams). When I studied law in school decades ago, tactics like bait-and-switch, false advertisting, intentionally misleading or deceptive practices etc to sell products or contracts were illegal across the developed world.

Those illegal, anti-consumer tactics were the SOP of every tech startup I can think of from the early 2000's onwards; following the same route of initially offering a compelling feature set to attract and entice users – usually for free – until securing a certain number of users or funding, then changing the value proposition to exploit that user base, and extract as much wealth from them as possible, ad infinitum.

Today these tactics are known as enshittification, and the average American pseudo-libertarian software engineer will say this is fine, but that's what every anti-consumer parasite and criminal has said in history. Lying, misleading, and exploiting people for financial gain is fundamentally immoral, corrupt, and sociopathic, therefore it should be illegal. Just because it's the norm, or a digital product, you wrote that in the T&C's, or your doing everything behind the liability shield of an LLC, doesn't change that.

What ever happened to the concept of building a valuable, quality product and stable returns for generations? Working to improve the quality of life and standard of living of the community? Of the world? I feel like a 1950's traditional conservative when I suggest that, but most Americans are so heavily indoctrinated with corporate greed and sociopathy they'd consider that sentiment radical leftist extremism. I'm an athiest, but ya'll need jesus (the real brown socialist one). Many would argue Americas current institutional collapse is the natural result of this systemic corruption.

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

#80
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.

It doesn't "bury [it] deep in their TOS", it says right under the box:

> AI can make mistakes, so double-check responses

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