If I post “heathrow83829 is a convicted poopoo head” (replace with your favourite crime) as if it were a factual claim, you’d be well within your rights to sue me for defamation even if people should apply some critical thinking skills and say “wait a minute, how would pdpi know that? Are you sure he isn’t just talking out of his arse?”

Now, search engines are usually afforded some amount of protection against defamation claims — they’re not held liable for simply indexing and quoting third party defamatory claims. Which is to say: Google wouldn’t be liable for claiming you’re a poopoo head if this comment shows up in search results.

The point of this ruling is that AI-generated text isn’t a quote from a third party, it’s text generated by Google’s own tools, so it’s speech by Google itself. It might be wrong, sure, but it’s still presented as a statement of fact.

At trial they can have the whole debate about whether Google was negligent in how they build their systems, and all that jazz, but let’s be clear here — it’s not a matter of every little factual mistake getting Google sued (and that would be absolutely terrifying from a freedom of speech perspective), but rather that the technical means by which you generate content doesn’t change your liability in publishing that content.

You’re seriously arguing that Google’s libel shouldn’t count as libel because they showed it to too many people? It’s absolutely insane to suggest that a company should be immune from liability for its actions if it operates on such scale that those actions harm millions of people every day on the basis that dealing with that many lawsuits would be too inconvenient.

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.

So scale of harm creates immunity, is that the argument ?

> at the scale that google is at, it doesn't make an ounce of sense to hold a company liable for a potential mistruth

If a Google employee (like a support agent) says a mistruth, the company is liable and you can sue. They can’t just say “hihi oopsies our support agents are useless”

Google can be reasonably expected to not push pirated content to top if someone is searching for the “big hit music download” because they might be held liable for helping people with illegal downloads. But they shouldn’t be liable for misleading people? Being sued for billions of dollars by corporations vs millions by common folks is the difference

Should google also be allowed to assasinate a couple of people per day due to their scale? If they can't manage liability at their scale they they should scale down.

Only referencing America, but professional liability for doctors, engineers, lawyers, etc isn't based on perfection. It's based on a reasonable effort.

So Google could, for example, switch from a tiny "this could be wrong!" byline to having the AI be less overconfident every freaking time regardless of whether it's spouting made up crap or actual facts.

The scale doesn't sound like a way out. If your company expects to get away with doing the wrong thing where smaller companies can't, then the solution isn't to continue getting away with it.

At the scale that google is at, is the exact the reason they need to be hold accountable for any misconduct because the impact is so big. If google just display third party content only, then yes, users need to use their own judgement. But if google itself generate content instead and put out claims, due to it's scale and reputation, those content needs to be true because most of the people put trust in Google, so any untrue or false information especially defame others, Google is 100% liable, period. You clearly don't have the clear mind or mental capacity to analyze this situation, probably very slow.

Hang on, so you are arguing that responsibility for your product is just a phase you grow out of as a company?

I'm seeing this sentiment more and more these days and it's worrying. Essentially people are starting to believe massive corporations should be able to get away with more than individuals. This is completely backwards considering the enormous impact a corporation can have, but that's what people are starting to think. I've heard people argue that corporations should be able to straight up lie and deceive to protect themselves, which is something you would not accept from a person.

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

I don’t know if critical thinking comes into it. If Google tells me “Company X is a terrible company that cheats its customers”, I don’t automatically know that’s false. It could very well be true. If I’ve got to look at the rest of the search results to figure that out anyway, what’s the point of the AI summary?

Then Google can either discontinue their AI or make damn sure it's good.

The problem with "the user" argument is the spectrum of users. There are different skills, capabilities, and intelligence. Frequently we wave our hands and say exactly this, critical thinking. But, not everyone is capable of that, nor is everyone capable to the same degree.

As a society we decide. Are we embracing all users, are there basic rights and assunptions? Do we only enable some?

As a free (as in cost to end user) system, Germany is arguing that their social compact raises the mininum bar. Frankly, thus might help drive a rush to increased accuracy for AI- tech finds a way. Equally it may hinder - beaurocracy creates barriers.

I'd love to be able to rely on these search results. I see them ad the same prior set of inaccuracies whereby I have to do more research. At least now there's a summary and direct links to the supporting information. But equally, we're primed with the information in the summary.

So once you get to that scale it suddenly doesn't matter anymore and you can't be held accountable.

But until then, be a good citizen?

What? That's fucking feudalism... Peasants and Lords.

If you're lucky enough, you're born as a Lord. (And maybe don't live during a revolution)

This makes no sense to me at all. If you're small you should get less bureaucracy than if you're bigger.

For e.g. self driving cars there should not be any exemptions. There are people's lives at stake, people who didn't sign up for your shitty service.

> google would be right to remove all AI results from germany.

As others already said, that would be a great outcome, and german citizens would benefit.

It is a search engine. It used to have decent excerpts. It doesn't need hallucinated generative AI summaries. I am about to click the link anyway.

[dead]

So if I make a script to spam everywhere with 0.1% odds that is fake I can’t be sued? Just because I spam millions of times per day means I shouldn’t be liable for what I do right? But someone saying one time should go to prison. Makes sense /s