Potentially impacting all AI search engines and chatbots known to poorly paraphrase source links, a German court has ruled that Google is liable for false statements in AI Overviews.
The ruling came in a case flagged by The Decoder, where two publishers found that Google’s AI Overviews incorrectly linked them to scams and other sketchy business practices. After smearing publishers by making affirmative statements like “Yes, [it] is known for dubious business practices and is often perceived as a scam,” Google failed to correct the misleading output, even after the publishers sent a cease-and-desist letter earlier this year.
Google tried the usual arguments to shield itself from liability for false statements in AI Overviews, such as arguing that most users understand that AI outputs aren’t always accurate and must be verified.
I can’t speak for everyone, but I know I certainly don’t want anything AI in my search engine. I’ll always switch to whoever provides that. It’s only been around a short time, maybe it’s the way things will be in the future and that’s great and all, but I won’t use it. I know I’m a dinosaur you win
Let us all be dinosaurs
I view them as two different tools entirely.
Did you think encyclopedia britannica was the internet?
Tools are supposed to be useful, all LLMs do is lie and degrade your mental faculties