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.
One could make an argument that their ranking of results does make them partially responsible for the attention you give to particular sources, but there’s no applicable legislation on that topic.
Good luck getting the fossils in our parliament to do something about that: By the time you’ve explained what it is, why it matters and start talking about the things that could or should be done, someone tells them that it’s about maximising ad revenue and they’ll immediately go “ah, so the free market will take care of it” and move on to more profitable matters.
I think the assumption was that the AI would be producing the words and thus implicitly bear the legal risk (but can’t actually be held liable, which should tarpit the courts trying to figure out how to sue a non-person) and the “check the results” footnote should help shift the burden on the users, “caveat emptor” style.
This judge, at least, wasn’t having any of it. If that legal risk wasn’t explicit before, it is now.
Let’s hope it sticks and spreads.