Their AI overviews are pretty commonly wrong, so this seems like it might hurt them a bit. Guessing they'll just block them in Germany or throw a bunch of disclaimers around the statements.
German ruling declares Google liable for false answers in AI Overviews
231–240 of 587 posts
Re: German ruling declares Google liable for false answers in AI Overviews
#232Earlier quoted context omitted.
If it is shown to millions, everyone who is interested in you, they are factually not fact checking and you can do nothing against it. It can destroy you. You are analyzing this on the assumption that people are rational and have capacity to do the check. They have neither.
(Shrug) That sounds like their problem, if they reflexively believe everything Google's AI tells them. No one I respect, care for, or work with would believe such a thing without additional justification. Anyone who does accept Google's AI output blindly will soon find that their mistaken opinion of CamperBob2 is the least of their problems. There is a reason Google goes (well) out of their way to warn people that th…
The ones who were defamed are companies, and the ones who don’t check the AI generated response are their potential customers which won’t buy from them.
It is obvious that the defamed companies are the ones having a problem, not the ignorant viewers.
Why should those companies not hold Google liable for that outcome?
Re: German ruling declares Google liable for false answers in AI Overviews
#233Earlier quoted context omitted.
The good thing is that google in Germany now shows how many reviews were removed due to deflamation. That should be enough for people to make their judgement when checking how many stars a place has
That's just the tip of the iceberg though. Google is the only party who meaningfully communicates this, and it took them years and years to introduce any meaningful transparency. It's not like this exclusively affects restaurant reviews, every corner of German society is subject to this same evil censorship mechanism.
I completely agree.
Re: German ruling declares Google liable for false answers in AI Overviews
#234Earlier quoted context omitted.
In common with most of Europe, German legal system is not based on case law. It's more firmly rooted in formal laws and regulations and judges are not required to follow precedent.
They don't have to follow it but leading decisions (Grundsatzentscheidungen) still influence how a lower court judge might interpret the same law. Based on providing legal certainty instead of stare decisis though. It's not a must, more of an... aid
This is not such a decision though; it's a first instance decision at a lower court.
Re: German ruling declares Google liable for false answers in AI Overviews
#235Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sounds like a win win to me
To remove the choice from responsible people who can understand that LLM answers are not to be trusted with anything important?
The harm was not done to the readers of the AI generated response, but to the defamed companies.
And yes, it is ok to remove choice if the existence of that choice violates other person’s rights.
Google can continue offering that choice if they make sure nobody is defamed.
Re: German ruling declares Google liable for false answers in AI Overviews
#236The irony of an article that makes a false claim about what Google was found liable for.... and that very few are fact checking it :) The law they broke was a law protecting personal and business reputation against false statements of fact. Essentially no one can say I might be wrong, check yourself, but X is Y if that claim is essentially defamatory. This is pretty good, I hope googles approach is to make sure they…
What does the article say that differs from what you wrote?
What he wrote is narrower than the headline
Re: German ruling declares Google liable for false answers in AI Overviews
#237If 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.
Re: German ruling declares Google liable for false answers in AI Overviews
#238Earlier quoted context omitted.
But you are not doing a 2 hour rabbit hole search when you stand in front of a T-shirt and check whether it is fair traded or all-american produced.
If those are things you legitimately care about before you spend one penny on a T-Shirt, then you are. Or you did your research before hand. Or you’re just not buying the T-Shirt. Or you don’t care about those things at all, and you will buy the T-Shirt that’s in front of you right now rather than wait later and buy one that better reflects your supposed values when you’ve done an appropriate amount of research. Usin…
You are confusing who is the party that is injured--as many in this thread are. We are not talking about the consumer who buys a non-fairtrade t-shirt, when he would rather had a fairtrade one. It's about the t-shirt producers who is legitimately fairtrade but whose business is now in the shitter because of a lying AI.
Re: German ruling declares Google liable for false answers in AI Overviews
#239Re: German ruling declares Google liable for false answers in AI Overviews
#240Earlier 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…
> But if you hold that position, you also have to be fine with companies not offering products and services in your country. Well.. I mean.. yeah? I don't think this is as bad as you think it is. Have you looked at SV and its product offerings recently? It's mostly just enshittified gamified value extraction that doesn't respect the user at all. "If you do not let us do all this the way we want, we will take away you…
I'm half-remembering a now-old satire along the same lines has Germans wondering why having Google Street View work in their area also requires internal photos of their apartments.