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Google hallucinated that I am sponsored by Ground News

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Re: Google hallucinated that I am sponsored by Ground News

#21

Could LLM's libel an individual? What's the duty of care for LLM's? Who would that person sue, should it come to that?

When we ask "Can guns kill people? What are the rules of engagement that a gun follows? Who would the person shot by a gun sue, should it come to that?" we aren't so confused.

The last human finger that pressed the button, and anyone employing them to press the button. The real question is how much intent transfers. If you point a gun at a person and the trigger goes off without you pulling it, how liable are you? If you're pointing it at the ground and it does the same and the shrapnel flies about, how liable are you for that? If a loaded gun cooks off in a burning car and a bullet goes flying, how liable are you for that?

If you give an AI agent free reign to your computer and ask it to set your schedule, and it ends up sending classified weapons plans that happened to be on your computer to the Chinese Communist Party, how much should you be held culpable?

With novel technologies we typically answer this conservatively, and say that the person running the agent (or holding/owning the gun) has full civil liability for its actions regardless of their intent, but may limit criminal exposure.

We would (should) take an especially dire and suspicious view of anybody that has anything material to gain from using the tool irresponsibly or maliciously; We can demonstrate incentive/motive even if we cannot prove their intent. The law here is principally a deterrent against somebody that tells an agent "Win me this election" or "Build this product", and the agent then proceeds to hire a hitman to kill their opponent, or steal their rival's technology through industrial espionage. My fear is that the way things are going, it's a completely ineffective deterrent. My guess is a lot of people need to be killed by AI agents before we take it seriously and limit its use as a fig leaf.

Re: Google hallucinated that I am sponsored by Ground News

#22
post #6

Why are LLM mistakes said to be hallucinations and not simply mistakes?

I believe the word comes from when people started using CNN models in reverse, so hallucinate input that never existed. LLM output is produced via a vaguely similar process. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DeepDream

But in any case, they aren't mistakes. LLMs are not trained to produce true output; they are trained to produce likely output. "Likely" happens to overlap with "true" a lot, but not always. If you ask Claude why aeroplanes fly it will still spew some nonsense about curved wings. Very likely output; not really true.

Re: Google hallucinated that I am sponsored by Ground News

#25
Bruce Schneier write a good piece about this the other day: https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2026/06/ai-and-liabil...

He argues that we just can't continue to let businesses getting away with blaming AI for mistakes they publish, because:

> To allow businesses to hide behind the excuse of faulty AI in those same circumstances would be a massive handout to companies, and would introduce disastrous incentives for corporate misbehavior. Why hire human writers, lawyers or doctors when AIs are not only cheaper, but also absolve employers whenever they make a mistake?

Re: Google hallucinated that I am sponsored by Ground News

#26
post #6

Why are LLM mistakes said to be hallucinations and not simply mistakes?

I believe the word comes from when people started using CNN models in reverse, so hallucinate input that never existed. LLM output is produced via a vaguely similar process. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DeepDream But in any case, they aren't mistakes. LLMs are not trained to produce true output; they are trained to produce likely output. "Likely" happens to overlap with "true" a lot, but not always. If you ask Claud…

> LLMs are not trained to produce true output; they are trained to produce likely output.

That is not what google search is promoting. They claim to be search. That is not what AI companies are promoting and selling.

Re: Google hallucinated that I am sponsored by Ground News

#27
I was trying to find out whether John Carmack’s negative experience with the DGX Spark was ever resolved etc. and Google conflates with someone else’s statements about the firmware updates improving it, and states “yes he did reassess it as now being useful” etc

Of course if you press it, it immediately states “there is nothing of public record stating this”

Re: Google hallucinated that I am sponsored by Ground News

#28

I mean... I get it. It's annoying. But the outrage is getting old. LLMs hallucinate. It's an unfixable problem. We're going to have to get used to it. In all fairness, fake reviews and just people lying on the internet has always been a thing. The fact that gemini once in a while gets something wrong is just not very upsetting anymore IMO.

"In all fairness, fake reviews and just people lying on the internet" is not the same as a corporation who builds a feature that lies regularly.

Imagine how would you feel if Amazon made up descriptions of all products, claiming features they didn't support and you ordered it... would you be ok with it, I bet not.

Re: Google hallucinated that I am sponsored by Ground News

#29

Could LLM's libel an individual? What's the duty of care for LLM's? Who would that person sue, should it come to that?

LLMs can't be sued or commit crimes as they aren't legal people

In this case its likely google that would be responsible for putting up the fake information. There's been some court cases around this already

Re: Google hallucinated that I am sponsored by Ground News

#30
post #5

I read that Rossmann also operates a black market maple syrup smuggling operation. In his spare time, he gives lectures on ancient Egyptian history while knitting sweaters. After releasing his multi-platinum country album, he traveled to New Zealand to climb Mount Kilimanjaro. This info is endorsed by @rossmanngroup and hosted on YouTube so seems legit.

I read the same thing! As someone that has followed Rossmann for years now, I am beyond disappointed that he would do something like this.

I could understand if it was drug smuggling, but maple syrup? That crossed the line for me.

I hope Louis can pull himself together and come back from this.

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