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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

#421

Post by Andrex »

crest wrote: post #372
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…

The court ruled that the AI generated content has an author/editor/publisher: Google. It also ruled that Google can be held liable. Insert pikachu face meme.

[flagged]

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

#422

Post by gilgamesh-OG »

jnovek wrote: post #389
ozgrakkurt wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. This doesn’t sound convincing. What AI and what company? LLMs don’t seem like they will ever be reliable like that. Self driving like waymo might be?

LLMs will absolutely be like that. The speed this technology is moving at makes me certain, especially over a period of 10-20 years; 20 years ago I was bugging friends for a GMail invite and AI was a joke left to academics. I think it will even be solved soon, like, within the next 18 to 36 months. Hallucinations are the biggest problem consumers have with LLMs and a solution to that would be instantly worth billions…

I don't know if you can "fix" hallucinations without changing the fundamental architecture. The other factor in this article is that prior to the AI summary at the top, Google could simply state that it was an error on the part of the website owner. Now it is being held liable for whatever the summary states - even if it's more accurate, it can still be wrong enough times to be expensive.

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

#423

Post by cyanydeez »

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.

you mean GAINS google search results, init

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

#424

Post by cyanydeez »

tantalor wrote: post #398
waysa wrote: post #329

It makes sense to me. When Google Search is quoting a 3rd-party website that happens to have bad information, that's not on them. Blame shifts to the 3rd-party. This is Google's privilege being a search engine. When Google operates as an answer machine instead of a search engine, the privelege doesn't apply anymore. There's no 3rd-party to take the blame.

No that's not what's happening here. > According to the court, the Al mixed up information about other, genuinely sketchy companies with the plaintiffs and drew connections that didn't appear in any of the linked sources. Implying: if the false claim was found in the sources then it would be protected speech. There is nothing special about "answer machine" versus "search engine". You are making that part up.

You're attacking semantics. the decision is entirely about the reliability and liability./

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

#426

Post by em-bee »

SllX wrote: post #197
clort wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you re-read the article, you might see that it mentions that the citations do not necessarily cover the AI summary. The linked pages do not make the claims that the AI summary makes. That is the context of the ruling. Google made up the claims, and provided false citations. They are not, in fact, providing a summary, but a whole new narrative. Therefore they own it.

I read the article and I’m aware of the failure modes of Google’s AI summary. They’re actually one of the worst in the space on this shit which is why I don’t use Gemini and it’s fine that they get slapped for this, but what I was responding to initially was this: > 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 be…

nobody has that skill. in order to recognize a contradiction you have to already know something contradictory. if you don't then you can't recognize anything. the only other reason to make you check is that you are very suspicious of this AI thing. you and me are, but who else is? you can repeat a thousand times that people should not trust an AI summary and they will not get it. they have neither the motivation nor the energy to do that research.

it's like saying people should not use a computer if they don't know how to keep it secure.

you have to look at the reality, which is that people are not educated or critical enough to use AI safely. and that misinformation can cause people to get killed.

just yesterday there was a post about a man being falsely accused of a crime by AI tools and losing his job and his family as a consequence.

these mistakes destroy lives, and most people are far to trusting to use AI tools safely

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

#427

Post by BigTTYGothGF »

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

I, too, agree that google is too large and should be broken up into multiple smaller companies.

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

#428

Post by microtonal »

Saline9515 wrote: post #347
CarlitosHighway wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let them sue then. Unless you lie in your review ("There was a used condom in my burger, 1 star"), nothing will happen.

"I trust the law and the justice system" is a great way to get a hands-on schooling on why people spend a lot of money on lawyers.

This is why you get good insurance for legal help. If some company does this too you, you can defend without spending a lot on lawyers.

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

#429

Post by jorvi »

CarlitosHighway wrote: post #333
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…

You cannot get sued for a review just because it's lower than 5 stars. But of course if you write something like "I found a dead cockroach in my pizza", or "I hard that they don't clean the dishes enough" in a review without proof, that's defamation. And it doesn't matter if you give 1 or 5 stars with the review.

Nope, that is not defamation. Both defamation and libel require it to be a false statement. If you did find a cockroach or your plate was dirty, you can freely say so without needing to provide extensive proof.

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

#430

Post by tremon »

hunterpayne wrote: post #303
Gigachad wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Notice the “get away with” part. Journalists can be held liable for making things up. And so should Google.

They aren't really held accountable in any way for this type of stuff.

That claim is easily disproven: https://futurism.com/artificial-intelligence/ars-technica-fi...
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