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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

#101

Post by andrewmutz »

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.

I think it's a completely reasonable position that companies making self-driving cars and question/answer systems are legally liable for any errors.

But if you hold that position, you also have to be fine with companies not offering products and services in your country. AI systems will eventually be good enough (in 10-20 years) for companies to be able to deploy such systems with sufficient accuracy to afford the lawsuits. Until that time, such countries would just not have access to systems before they were bulletproof.

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

#102

Post by wongarsu »

jjcm wrote: post #72

What constitutes a correct answer though? Is something like, "People online say that x y and z because a b c" a credible, correct answer, even if it isn't because of a/b/c?

If people do say that, it's a true statement and thus fine. You are allowed to report that regardless of the truth of x/y/z/a/b/c

The instance of this ruling people apparently did not actually say any of the offending claims. 'The court also found that the AI overview made claims "that are not even made in the search results." None of the linked sources drew any connection between the plaintiffs and the shady companies the AI mentioned. The court called these "the defendant's own statements."'

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

#103

Post by pojntfx »

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.

> But watch as Germany soon loses AI Google results.

Oh no! Anyway ...

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

#105

Post by sinuhe69 »

Oh, I just found out that my Google search doesn't show AI summary anymore! I tried many search queries which typically will show an AI summary, but it only flicked on briefly then disappear entirely. Obviously, Google has reacted quickly on this ruling!

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

#106

Post by Rekindle8090 »

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.

[dead]

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

#107

Post by Rekindle8090 »

happymellon wrote: post #91
sva_ wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't "bury [it] deep in their TOS", it says right under the box: > AI can make mistakes, so double-check responses

They decided to hijack search and rewrite other peoples websites as their own. If they want to claim ownership, then they will have to accept responsibility.

Search still works the same you just have to scroll down

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

#108

Post by Robotbeat »

Frieren wrote: post #81

How could anything else make any sense? Platforms are getting used to provide dangerous broken products and get away with it. There should be some limit to it. Next do Amazon that is selling AI generated foraging books: - https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/sep/01/mushroom-... When I was a kid it was possible to buy any foraging books from a store and they had a minimum quality. Is that so difficult to achiev…

Should we hold scientists and journalists liable if they say false things or misrepresent things?

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

#109

Post by thfuran »

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…

You’re seriously arguing that Google’s libel shouldn’t count as libel because they showed it to too many people? It’s absolutely insane to suggest that a company should be immune from liability for its actions if it operates on such scale that those actions harm millions of people every day on the basis that dealing with that many lawsuits would be too inconvenient.

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

#110

Post by jacknews »

We should be teaching people to be cynical of AI answers.

Even if the answers are correct, they could still be biased, incomplete, misleading, and all the other media-literacy things people should be looking out for.

This ruling seems to go the opposite direction; 'I am legally obliged to give correct answers, so I am always right, trust the AI'.

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