THERE IS A FAINT GLIMMER OF HOPE for those of us who value the truth and honesty and just basic correct information against lies, self-interest and online slop, not that it will survive the US Supreme Court's usual BJ prostitute servicing of the billionaires, millionaires and "corporate persons" but a court in Germany has held that the part of Google that is giving even we the unwilling "AI" search results are liable for lies it throws out to the world.
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 preliminary 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.
But the court found that, unlike traditional search engines that merely present lists of links to third-party statements, Google’s tool made “independent, new, and substantive statements” based on its own misinterpretation of links on the Internet.
That’s a problem, the court said, because while publishers may have been able to sue to stop third parties from publishing defamatory statements appearing in Google search results, only Google can correct the underlying algorithm and outputs displayed in AI Overviews. And because, at least initially, the company did not, it therefore “must be held accountable,” the court ruled. Beyond that, Google’s argument was deemed particularly weak, since the AI overview in this case “contains statements that do not appear in the search results at all.”
All but the most tech savvy of those who have favored so-called "artificial intelligence" and those they have gulled among the public have the most magical and unrealistic view of it and its potential and that includes virtually every tech billionaire, individually or clustered into malignant herds of them and their tech goons. Their view of it more influenced by sci-fi, sci-ranger cultism, scientistic, atheist-materialist ideology or just the typical greed that has fed many a stock market bubble.
Other than the successful use of "AI" for some highly technical things, like scanning cell samples and imaging to look for signs of pathology, most of it is commercial crap fueling the approaching and disastrous pop or the current bubble the world economy is sitting on. That is concerning but, as I've noted, the use of "AI" to destroy real information in favor of slop, truth in favor of lies, oligarchic propaganda over everything else, is destroying equality and democracy as well.
Whatever parts of Google who still care about responsibility and not being evil - remember that slogan? - should buck the "AI" mania and shut it down and get it out of their search engine. I might go back to using it if they did that, with it, no. They're going to take a hit when the bubble bursts which, I think, given the eagerness of the tech billionaire oligarchs trying to dump their stocks in IPOs all at once, is about to happen, they might want to at least mitigate the disaster for their company by publicly trying to get shut of it.
But back to "AI" that libels companies and, no doubt, individuals making the corporations, billionaires and millionaires liable for their algorithm's lies here in the land lorded over by the lawyer-liars on the Supreme Court, I wouldn't suggest you wait up nights or hold your breath. Those Supremes love them some billionaire-millionaire lying. They have for at least sixty four years. I hope in other countries without our out of control Court they can keep the truth alive because it's got little chance here.
Note: You can, of course, use it to tell the truth or, at least, something closer to the truth than, for example, the American "free press'" version of things. I would, by the way, include the Iranian use of "AI" generated cartoons to hurl against Trump in that. Though they certainly wouldn't be interested in turning it against the dictatorship in Iran, once the Israeli-American war on them stops. If we live that long.
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