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.
I have a business where our support email is recommended when people are searching for how to cancel a completely unrelated scam subscription that is showing up on their bank or credit card charges. We get emails almost daily from confused people.
I'm surprised this is even a thing. After all, you go to Google not for the truth, but to search Google. Since when is truthiness the "guarantee of service"?
You're not even paying for a google service, search is free... You might be the product, and your data, but you didn't directly pay for a service and they didn't sell you a fake service.
I'm not taking Google's side, this isn't about whether it's right or wrong to rob websites of traffic, this is about AI's returning search metadata.
But I'm surprised that they lost this argument, and the line they took in the first place.
The Internet isn't made of fact checked data, it's crowd sourced. How can anyone be liable?
That is exactly the point of the ruling, though... they are saying that AI summaries are NOT the same as search. If Google was just returning search results, and then users clicked on a website and read the content there, Google is not responsible for the content.
If instead Google gives you an answer right there on google.com, without going to another site, they ARE responsible for it.
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.
I think it's very clear that Google's AI overviews go far beyond just searching Google because they often incorrectly compile sources to come up with an incorrect answer. For example of this look at the comment I made in this thread
You'd think so, along with other countries that have defamation laws. But there's no indication of any penalty, and Google wasn't even made to pay all the legal fees. Perhaps their business model (if there is any) can cope.
Anyone know if this ruling applies to answers generated by AI chatbots, such as ChatGPT/Gemini/Claude?
All three have the ability to perform a web search, then compose a reply based on the search results. Pretty much the exact thing that Google AI Overview does. This ruling may make them liable for false answers.
> Pretty much the exact thing that Google AI Overview does.
No, the article implies the court’s logic is that the AI search results are presented as search results and that’s a big part of why they are liable. It seems like the court (again, according to the article) does not find the disclaimers that Google has slapped on the AI results compelling because again, it chose to represent these as a summary of search results and it is aware of the failure rate.
> The court also found that the AI overview made claims "that are not even made in the search results." None of the linked sources drew any connection between the plaintiffs and the shady companies the AI mentioned. The court called these "the defendant's own statements."
> Google built the AI, Google offered it to users, so Google owns what it produces, "because it alone has influence over the AI's offering and the algorithms with which the AI operates."
Google does not, as a general rule, control the actual content of search results, but usually there’s a distinction between the ranking and presentation of the results vs. the actual content. In this case, the court is basically saying, “You sold this to people as a search summary, you know it might be full of crap and you chose to do it anyway. No, you don’t get to claim the equivalent of a US safe harbor defense.”
> You sold this to people as a search summary, you know it might be full of crap and you chose to do it anyway
There is a subtle difference in stating it as a search summary compared to an opinionated answer. Most users are always going to treat it as a response from google instead of search results where the user is still responsible for understanding and come up with their own interpretation.
This is probably the right step in some sense to make one liable for their statements/assertions.
Apparently, if they were search results, they wouldn't have been liable, since there's an exception to defamation laws. Without any exception, defamation is defamation, it doesn't matter how it's presented.
Yes, if it was that a search result returned a defamatory article that Google had nothing to do with outside of indexing, it is likely they would not be found liable. The court is clearly trying to make a distinction that the AI search results are produced by Google and thus they can make an editorial decision on whether to publish it despite knowing that it is potentially defamatory.
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.
Companies generally are liable if their product doesn’t perform. No reason AI should be any different.
I have a business where our support email is recommended when people are searching for how to cancel a completely unrelated scam subscription that is showing up on their bank or credit card charges. We get emails almost daily from confused people.
I'm surprised this is even a thing. After all, you go to Google not for the truth, but to search Google. Since when is truthiness the "guarantee of service"?
You're not even paying for a google service, search is free... You might be the product, and your data, but you didn't directly pay for a service and they didn't sell you a fake service.
I'm not taking Google's side, this isn't about whether it's right or wrong to rob websites of traffic, this is about AI's returning search metadata.
But I'm surprised that they lost this argument, and the line they took in the first place.
The Internet isn't made of fact checked data, it's crowd sourced. How can anyone be liable?
That is exactly the point of the ruling, though... they are saying that AI summaries are NOT the same as search. If Google was just returning search results, and then users clicked on a website and read the content there, Google is not responsible for the content.
If instead Google gives you an answer right there on google.com, without going to another site, they ARE responsible for it.
That makes sense to me?
why? tons of websites push misinformation intentionally. is there a truth requirement anywhere? i don’t get why this is a thing at all
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.
I think it's very clear that Google's AI overviews go far beyond just searching Google because they often incorrectly compile sources to come up with an incorrect answer. For example of this look at the comment I made in this thread
Playing the perception game wins you the perspective price.
Nothing is free. Google benefits off you when they show you search page. Either today (ads) or later
> 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!
that would be hela curryketchup nice
You'd think so, along with other countries that have defamation laws. But there's no indication of any penalty, and Google wasn't even made to pay all the legal fees. Perhaps their business model (if there is any) can cope.
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?
Some digital matters concern the state and others are private and there should be no sovereignty of the state over private matters.
Anyone know if this ruling applies to answers generated by AI chatbots, such as ChatGPT/Gemini/Claude?
All three have the ability to perform a web search, then compose a reply based on the search results. Pretty much the exact thing that Google AI Overview does. This ruling may make them liable for false answers.
> Pretty much the exact thing that Google AI Overview does.
No, the article implies the court’s logic is that the AI search results are presented as search results and that’s a big part of why they are liable. It seems like the court (again, according to the article) does not find the disclaimers that Google has slapped on the AI results compelling because again, it chose to represent these as a summary of search results and it is aware of the failure rate.
> The court also found that the AI overview made claims "that are not even made in the search results." None of the linked sources drew any connection between the plaintiffs and the shady companies the AI mentioned. The court called these "the defendant's own statements."
> Google built the AI, Google offered it to users, so Google owns what it produces, "because it alone has influence over the AI's offering and the algorithms with which the AI operates."
Google does not, as a general rule, control the actual content of search results, but usually there’s a distinction between the ranking and presentation of the results vs. the actual content. In this case, the court is basically saying, “You sold this to people as a search summary, you know it might be full of crap and you chose to do it anyway. No, you don’t get to claim the equivalent of a US safe harbor defense.”
> You sold this to people as a search summary, you know it might be full of crap and you chose to do it anyway
There is a subtle difference in stating it as a search summary compared to an opinionated answer. Most users are always going to treat it as a response from google instead of search results where the user is still responsible for understanding and come up with their own interpretation.
This is probably the right step in some sense to make one liable for their statements/assertions.
Apparently, if they were search results, they wouldn't have been liable, since there's an exception to defamation laws. Without any exception, defamation is defamation, it doesn't matter how it's presented.
Yes, if it was that a search result returned a defamatory article that Google had nothing to do with outside of indexing, it is likely they would not be found liable. The court is clearly trying to make a distinction that the AI search results are produced by Google and thus they can make an editorial decision on whether to publish it despite knowing that it is potentially defamatory.
I don't see any reason why it wouldn't.
Their digital sovereignty