German courts rule Google is directly liable for content of its AI-generated search overviews

[Archaic]

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...

the-decoder.com

• A German regional court has ruled that Google is directly liable for false claims in its AI-generated search overviews.
• In this case, Google's AI had wrongly linked two publishers to scams and shady business practices.
• The court treated the AI overviews as Google's own content and rejected Google's argument that users were responsible for fact-checking the results themselves.

This is a pretty huge ruling. AI companies have thusfar tried to present things as a "buyer beware" situation. Google even outright used a Fox News-style defense in this case (Fox News famously argued in a case involving Tucker Carlson that no reasonable viewer would believe what their hosts said as literal fact, and that their viewers understood it as opinion and/or hyperbole), saying that Google Search users generally knew "that information generated with AI should not be blindly trusted". The courts rejecting this argument, even when a clear disclaimer is present as with Google's AI results, means that companies using AI can now be held liable for what they say, similar to how a company might be held liable for what is said by their flesh and blood employees. That makes AI search results and chatbots a potentially huge legal liability.

 

[Freckles]

maybe there's light at the end of this tunnel after all...

 

[Blast]

This is a good result, but only for one country. These snakes will keep their products as invasive and damaging as possible for profit wherever they can. Hope these small victories will lead to the bigger dominos falling eventually. The law is always 2 laps behind in these cases unfortunately, but it's still important.

 

[Archaic]

Only one country so far, but since it's Germany we can likely expect this ruling to be adopted across the entire EU. And as we've seen from things like the adoption of USB-C, having the EU on board with something tends to swing business practices on a global scale.

 

[Blast]

Only one country so far, but since it's Germany we can likely expect this ruling to be adopted across the entire EU. And as we've seen from things like the adoption of USB-C, having the EU on board with something tends to swing business practices on a global scale.

True, Germany can be a strong influence in the EU. They're supposed to be at the forefront of AI legislation fighting against the Big Tech lobby. There's talk of creating European alternatives to American and Chinese technologies too. Gonna take some time for projects like that to get off the ground let alone gain widespread adoption.

 

[colours]

it remains to be seen how much of a global effect this will have, but this is certainly a step in the right direction, for sure. perhaps this case will be utilized as precedent for other eu courts, should the case be brought to them.