Google maintains it should not be held responsible for false statements shared by its AI summaries.
Google’s parent company, Alphabet, is set to appeal a decision made by a German court, which determined the firm was legally liable for false claims that appeared in AI Overviews – a decision the tech giant argued would also affect other AI developers.
The preliminary court decision found the tech giant should be held accountable for any false statements made by its AI Overviews feature. Google was taken to court by two publishers, which were incorrectly linked to scams by the AI summaries within the search engine.
“This case focuses on specific and narrow errors, not the foundational way AI Overviews displays web content. We disagree with the ruling and plan to appeal,” a Google spokesperson told Reuters in an email.
The tech giant said it takes quick action in all cases of policy violations, and that AI Overviews are overwhelmingly accurate, although in some cases, summaries may miss context or misinterpret web content.
The court found that because Google was the only one able to adjust what summaries said, it is directly responsible for any inaccuracies. The judge said the AI rewrites results based on “its own words and according to its own structure”.
Previously, Google and other search engines were protected from liability because they simply made third-party content discoverable, whereas this reasoning does not apply to AI Overviews since it generates “independent, new and substantive statements” and only Google can amend those.
Google has also come under criticism from publishers who argued their traffic has been negatively affected by the introduction of AI tools, which take information from their sites and display them without redirecting users into their platforms. This removes a large revenue for publishers, which rely on clicks and ad views to stay afloat.
In the UK, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has imposed new requirements on Google’s search service to improve transparency and fairer deals for publishers.
