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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

#291

Post by dgellow »

Saline9515 wrote: post #285
brainwad wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It has nothing to do with monopolies. Google was protected from defamation law with search because the page title and snippets were direct quotes from the linked result page. Whereas with AI overviews, the copy is written by a Google-controlled LLM.

It should be noted that defamation law has a very low threshold in Germany, to the point that businesses routinely sue Google Maps users for less-than-5-stars reviews. Google had to change their display of reviews because of this. Three stars review is taken down for "libel": https://support.google.com/maps/thread/367778263/google-maps... HNer gets a legal threat after saying that he didn't like a doctor: https://new…

Damn, that makes public facing LLMs a horrible liability

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

#292

Post by dbdr »

elil17 wrote: post #274
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. That would be a boon for Germany in my book. If you wanted AI results you could go use an AI.

Agreed. The problem is that people are used to do search, which returns hits from clearly identified sources. Suddenly, Gemini is interpreting your query and generating its own response. It's an entirely different product. If I expect to find a source, this was just wasted inference. It's especially problematic that the LLM result is the top result, since we all know how much that matters.

It's fine to have Gemini as an option, it's also fine to have a combined result page, that should just be something people are able to chose if they want that (even persistently if they want). It should just not be the default.

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

#293

Post by input_sh »

elil17 wrote: post #274
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. That would be a boon for Germany in my book. If you wanted AI results you could go use an AI.

That's something that would make me always VPN into Germany for sure.

When I search, I want to see search results. When I ask AI, I want to ask AI. Combining the two into one is a disaster.

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

#294

Post by [deleted] »

ssttoo wrote: post #139
NegativeK wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's apparently already changing in the EU, where software vulnerabilities mean the company is liable for damages. The only way out is to straight up not make any money (not just from direct sales) from the software.

Is the burden of proof on me, the developer? Do I need to prove in perpetuity that I didn’t get a job or a free flight to talk at a conference because of my free software? (Which had a flaw that hurt someone)

[deleted]

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

#295

Post by jojomodding »

NitpickLawyer wrote: post #162
andrewmutz wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 la…

> 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. I doubt that will be the case, because of the long tail problem. (same with self driving cars and other ML related problems). In fact, we have counter-examples today. Newspapers (even reputable ones) can't get it right every time, despite the fact that they have…

Newspapers have mechanisms like corrections and apologies that can be used to "right" a published falsehoods.

This relies on me being able to find out if a newspaper lies about me, which is usually easy since we can all go buy the same newspaper. With AI it is much harder to find out that it has been telling potential customers wrong things about my business.

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

#296

Post by mrspuratic »

bergen wrote: post #174
gblargg wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To remove the choice from responsible people who can understand that LLM answers are not to be trusted with anything important?

So we deploy a technology no one should trust to the general public, for what exact reason?

Land grab strategy 101.

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

#297

Post by kevinxsun »

riskd wrote: post #31
burpingtree wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What don’t you understand? Those websites that defame a company are liable for that defamation. In this case Google defamed a company in its AI summary and is this liable for that defamation.

So if I edit a Wikipedia article to share that consuming poison is safe and someone consumes poison after reading it… is Wikipedia legally liable?

but if Wikipedia itself writes harmful content such as encouraging people to drink bleach, then wikipedia is liable. Google now generates its own content with AI, that defame others, so Google is liable.

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

#298

Post by andai »

brainwad wrote: post #237
Hfuffzehn wrote: post #220

If I get it correctly I like the ruling. So Google has established a product called Search. For that product rules have been established. Google has monopolized that product. Now Google is replacing that product with a new product. But they keep calling it the same thing. Because they want to keep their monopoly. That is what has been deemed illegal. Gemini is not illegal. Pretending the worst version of Gemini is Se…

It has nothing to do with monopolies. Google was protected from defamation law with search because the page title and snippets were direct quotes from the linked result page. Whereas with AI overviews, the copy is written by a Google-controlled LLM.

Making the response consist entirely of direct quotes sounds like a better user experience than what they're doing now.

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

#299

Post by pif »

dgellow wrote: post #291
Saline9515 wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It should be noted that defamation law has a very low threshold in Germany, to the point that businesses routinely sue Google Maps users for less-than-5-stars reviews. Google had to change their display of reviews because of this. Three stars review is taken down for "libel": https://support.google.com/maps/thread/367778263/google-maps... HNer gets a legal threat after saying that he didn't like a doctor: https://new…

Damn, that makes public facing LLMs a horrible liability

Which is what thay should be in any sane environments. LLMs can be wonderful tools, but they cannot be trusted.

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

#300

Post by input_sh »

donaldjbiden wrote: post #3
benoau wrote: post #2

> In this case, Google's AI had wrongly linked two publishers to scams and shady business practices. Guess that's the end of their AI overviews in the EU!

It depends if Google feels the profit is worth the risks. What profit? I don't know either but they enabled this for a reason right?

The reason is to keep you on Google and not have you click away from Google.

This is the third iteration of the same concept, after AMP and Instant Answers, but somehow with even less of a pushback than with the previous ones.

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