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.
Removing all the emotion from this, the specific problem with these AI overviews is how Google presents them to you.
Everybody with some sense knows AI’s can excrete total hogwash and it’s answers need to be fact checked down to the most minute detail. Some people take what they get from AI’s as gospel anyway, but that is a them problem.
But Google a: calls these summaries, and b: presents them as the top search result. Both of these things come with a greater than normal degree of implied factuality.
Someone techincally minded will know it’s still AI an subject to the same scrutiny but the population at large simply does not, because they entered a search query in a google search box and aren’t willingly and deliberately talking to an AI.
And that’s a problem too. If everything ai says should be fact checked, the burden is shifted back to the consumer making the convenience or ‘productivity’ aspect virtually nonexistent. Such a cop out. Here’s your answer! *be sure to fact check. Okay so google it basically? Why the ai then? Just stupid
Here is an example… Apparently Zelensky was a US president at one point and we all missed it.
That’s actually a really good summary of the issue. It’s the tacitly implied authenticity and “goodness of match” that being the top result implies that shifts the balance.
If they’d put a “generate AI summary of search” button to display the AI result, I the they’d be on firmer ground.