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.
And that is a good thing!
We (the world) need at least some basic level of quality and truth in AI generated answers. FINALLY.
This appears to be impossible with current LLMs. You would need an actual human to verify every possible search result as the LLM is incapable of doing that for itself
Then I look forward to future LLMs.
Not the court’s problem.
“Sorry, your honor, my weapon is that faulty so I can never know who it is who will be killed, but I just had to shoot because that’s how I make my money…”
That’s my point, the problem is the LLM itself shouldn’t even be being used to begin with. I’m not defending AI bullshit by any means. But legislating “truth” out of an LLM is an impossible ask, l like asking for puppies to be shot out of a pistol.
Sometimes it does not even matter if it is truth or not.
That may actually be such a case here: Factual statements that can create bad reputation for somebody (or some company).
That cannot be libel in most jurisdictions. I’m pretty sure that’s not the case here.
Then LLMs are defective and should not be used as a replacement for web indexes or anything useful.