tanteJun 10

A court in Munich declared that Google is liable for their "AI summaries" and all its hallucinations. This is an important step to bring "AI" slop in line with all other products on the market: "AI" products are basically the only ones where a provider can just deliver unchecked garbage and put all the liability on the consumer. I hope to see aggressive change here.

https://the-decoder.com/landmark-german-ruling-declares-googles-ai-overviews-are-googles-own-words-and-makes-it-liable-for-false-answers/

Landmark German ruling declares Google's AI Overviews are Google's own words and makes it liable for false answers

A German regional court has ruled that Google is directly liable for the content of its AI search overviews. According to the court, previous limited liability protections for search engine operators don't apply to AI overviews. In this case, Google's AI had falsely linked two publishers to fraud and made claims that didn't appear in any of the linked sources. The ruling could set a precedent for AI-generated content liability worldwide.

The Decoder
Show threadeclexic

@tante This is the kind of thing I couldn't have come up with, because I would never have considered what the LLM is spitting out to be Google's words.

Guess there is no real way out. They get what they wanted and I isn't legally theft (however incompetent)... but now it's their words so guess they are responsible.

Look forward to how they try to fight this one. Sorry it's not our words, we actually stole the entirety of human creation.

Jun 10 at 9:29amWeb
Show threadNoodlemazJun 10
@theeclecticdyslexic @tante they made/own/run the thing, so why not? They've put the summaries front and centre. They integrated it when there was absolutely no need. The LLM didn't have to be doing any of those things.
Show threadeclexicJun 10

@noodlemaz @tante Oh, for sure. I just never would have thought of it, because I was so preoccupied with the legal questions of theft, and how anything it says is almost always in the training data somewhere (or multiple somewheres).

I do think this ruling is a consequence of their efforts to convince people it is "intelligent". People wouldn't consider it something to listen to otherwise. It would just be an inconvenience, as it is for people who know better.