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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

#91

Post by happymellon »

sva_ wrote: post #80
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.

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.

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

#92

Post by psychoslave »

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?

Certainly, if this is pointing to the actual pages where the actual people express these things. Otherwise that's equally unfalsifiable claims, could be completely made up or actual truth.

One way to formulate things that would be less would be "once support a time, in some fabulated world, it's not impossible that some imaginary character would say something following some reason." But then, of course this is not aligning the the deception scheme pushed by companies putting in their interface that the "machine is thinking hard for you".

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

#93

Post by SllX »

em-bee wrote: post #70
heathrow83829 wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

the user needs to use some judgement on the information they receive and have some critical thinking skills how? 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 benefit of AI? nobody is going to do that. google would be right to remove all AI results from germany i'd consider that a win.

By checking the citations rather than taking what’s generated at face value.

If it’s important, check it. If it’s not important, then it is pretty much just entertainment.

LLMs can be very useful in a general web search and save some time, but if you don’t put those literacy & critical thinking skills to the test and actually confirm anything, then you might as well not even have bothered with the search at all unless you’re hoping it can just replace all of your original thinking too.

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

#94

Post by jayGlow »

lithos wrote: post #89
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?

One that doesn't maim/injure/kill you is a pretty good standard. And before you call bs, look at all the foraging and chemistry books that are for sale on Amazon that are AI.

why are those ai chemistry books any different than the anarchist cookbook which can also be bought on Amazon? actually now that I think about it a faulty chemistry book might be less dangerous than a book that teachers readers how to make explosives.

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

#95

Post by bulbar »

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…

[dead]

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

#96

Post by ggm »

Good. This should be taken as the precedent for all economies: If you promulgate demonstrably false information to somebody's detriment then the owner and operator of the machine has to carry the liability.

I very much hope we don't see attempts to re-write T&C to avoid this liability.

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

#97

Post by bulbar »

morkalork wrote: post #87
heathrow83829 wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

How do you feel about the EPA, industrial accidents, oil spills etc? Does scale give every company a free pass for damages?

That's not a fair comparison. If oil companies would get sued for every leak, they had to face millions of law suites and wouldn't be competitive anymore.

(Sarcasm to support your argument)

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

#100

Post by neuroelectron »

gmerc wrote: post #99

Choosing the answer for you rather than leaving it to the user is a tremendous power and the court correctly diagnoses it comes with responsibly to minimize harm to others in society.

Of course, they know this. The entire point is be able to rewrite people's awareness.
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