AI overview isn't a search result

David Gerard of Pivot to AI tells us that Google found liable for defamatory AI overviews:

Google’s AI overviews are accurate 91% of the time! Which means 9% of the time, the AI is just making stuff up.

The case stem from a German case where two publishers were linked to scam or other sketchy practice in the AI overview. So they sued.

Ars Technica says Nobody needs AI to search the Internet, court says in ruling against Google about the same case:

In other words, nobody needs AI to search the Internet, so AI firms can’t just let their tools attribute false claims to fake sources without assuming any liability.

In short: present actual search results, and you are fine. But run them through your sparkling fiction generator to present a “summary”, you are responsible for what you write.

Also:

The court also seemed to take a dig at Google for expecting users not to “blindly trust” AI overviews, noting that the AI tool’s utility “would be significantly diminished if the ‘AI overview’ were generally regarded as unreliable and if every single displayed link required independent verification.”

You are the product.

Anyway. This kind of decision should convince Google legal department to put a stop to that “AI Overview” no one asked for. But I have a feeling it won’t. Or at least not outside Germany. But of course they will appeal. The winners are surely be the lawyers.

Google ruined search by first monopolising it, and then by destroying it with “AI”.