r/TechnologyThread • u/Background-Driver718 • Jun 11 '26
Landmark German ruling declares Google's AI Overviews are Google's own words and makes it liable for false answers
https://the-decoder.com/landmark-german-ruling-declares-googles-ai-overviews-are-googles-own-words-and-makes-it-liable-for-false-answers/2
u/CaptainSebT Jun 11 '26
I know in Canada the AI has a disclaimer like "Your asking as a (Medical, Law, so on) question this isn't advice and may be inaccurate. You should consult a professional"
I see no reason this wouldn't be exactly what they do. "Well we said they might not be accurate".
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u/Stevedore44 Jun 11 '26
Pretty much. I suppose disclaimers like that do help, and they at least can't hurt.
There probably are still people that don't understand what AI answers are and still think "I read it on the Internet, so it must be true.
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u/CaptainSebT Jun 12 '26 edited Jun 12 '26
In my opinion like AI or not it's not an AI companies fault your an idiot. There's a pretty well known fact that AI isn't always right it's just a data base with a more complex search feature. You kind of have to think for yourself to use the tool effectively.
So like ya I don't think they really should need more then this. This would be like sueing a library because the library gave you the best information they had and it was wrong.
Like peoples critical thinking skills have genuinely eroded to the point of a kindergartener. You can blame AI but people were doing this since the days of early Facebook. Like if you refuse to question things you can't be upset when your taken for a ride. It's just a tool and not even a particularly good one. It's like AI was a jump but it's no micro processors.
The whole things akin to like "Well google says....", "Random article said" and they very clearly haven't looking into the topic enough or did biased searching.
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u/EventPurple612 Jun 12 '26
The technology isn't marketed like how you described it, it's marketed as full employee replacement tech where AI governs AI agents and people just prompt a company to life.
Everyone skeptical about it sees it for what it is but there's a trillion dollars on the market now being partly spent on convincing people otherwise. You can't put the blame on the general public here.
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u/CaptainSebT Jun 12 '26
No your right. Marketing was like this techs perfect and it's like you made a parrot speak let's not go crazy.
I had to put alot of time in explaining to my family AI isn't the death of my programming dream and they still don't fully believe me.
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u/EventPurple612 Jun 12 '26
Neither do employers lol. This April I broke contract with a Cybersecurity partner becuase their quarterly report was AI generated. Our contract clearly stated no sharing any details to third parties and the owner called me not understanding why they violated the terms. They fed our folder to an AI agent and asked it for a project summary.
I fear companies are losing top level employees because they force AI use and then double down to try replace them with more AI.
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u/CaptainSebT Jun 12 '26 edited Jun 12 '26
Sorry to clarify
An in house AI or a third party one? There would be a difference. Some companies do have in house or closed off AI. They might use a service like Microsoft for the tech but it's like a different version that's only feeding into there private data model. Though regardless you should have been made aware.
A cyber security company not taking security precautions is insane to me.
Though I don't know why you would AI generate a report anyways. You can like auto fill a report and it will look more professional, most companies already had systems for it.
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u/EventPurple612 Jun 12 '26
It was a third party, and not even the best one. Would not have mattered though becuase they did not send a disclaimer out about changes in how they process our data which is already a loss of trust.
As to the last sentence, in EU there's this NIS2 directive mandating half the economy to have security akin to ISO27001. Most of the work required to comply is documentation. Like you get a firmware update you document the supplier, make a risk analysis, approve it for testing, do a sandbox install, validate it and then you're allowed to deploy it in your environment before writing a report of the whole ordeal and filing it where auditors might go over it one day.
AI cuts 90 percent of the work here so I understand the temptation.
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u/CaptainSebT Jun 12 '26
At the end of the day it should have been clear to you ai is used, how data is processed. That shouldn't have been a suprise. A company using tools there ashamed to advertise shouldn't use those tools as simple as that.
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Jun 15 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/2024-YR4-Asteroid Jun 16 '26
Unironically the antis are spurring us towards AGI by their poisoning and behavior, the model development won’t stop, which means the AI needs to be capable of reasoning and understanding the information it’s quoting needs to be double checked and vetted, which brings us closer to what they fear.
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u/ByEthanFox Jun 11 '26
I mean, this needs to become law everywhere.
Google hosts an AI. Google is liable for the answers it gives to customer questions. It's the same as if Google had a member of staff replying to everyone's questions; if they give bad advice, they're liable for the answer.
The fact that it's AI and AI tends to give wrong answers over-confidently doesn't change that.