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Comment by cortesoft | Hacker News Reader

That is exactly the point of the ruling, though... they are saying that AI summaries are NOT the same as search. If Google was just returning search results, and then users clicked on a website and read the content there, Google is not responsible for the content.

If instead Google gives you an answer right there on google.com, without going to another site, they ARE responsible for it.

That makes sense to me?

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Not precisely. The issue at hand isn't just that Google displayed the AI summary, but that they authored it, making them responsible for its contents. If the defamatory content had been in a snippet in the search results, they would've been fine, because that clearly has another author who can be held responsible. The AI summary has no other author than Google; therefore, they're responsible for what it says.

(What's the alternative, after all? Having no one responsible for what the AI summary says is clearly untenable.)

why? tons of websites push misinformation intentionally. is there a truth requirement anywhere? i don’t get why this is a thing at all

What don’t you understand? Those websites that defame a company are liable for that defamation. In this case Google defamed a company in its AI summary and is this liable for that defamation.

So if I edit a Wikipedia article to share that consuming poison is safe and someone consumes poison after reading it… is Wikipedia legally liable?

No, because Wikimedia isn't responsible for the behavior of its editors.

> is Wikipedia legally liable?

Directly? Quite possibly. They'd then have to transfer that liability to you.

> is Wikipedia legally liable?

Probably not, because it's a similar situation where Wikipedia is accumulating user provided content. And people know Wikipedia can be freely edited.

You, however, might be liable. It's your content.

Not for defamation, nobody was defamed in that scenario. But Wikipedia has been sued for defamation at least once:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asian_News_International_v._Wi...

but if Wikipedia itself writes harmful content such as encouraging people to drink bleach, then wikipedia is liable. Google now generates its own content with AI, that defame others, so Google is liable.

> is there a truth requirement anywhere?

Yes, and it's called defamation when you don't follow it.

There is absolutely a truth requirement.

This is why you have to say "I think this person is a murderer" and not "This person is a murderer."

One is opinion. One is fact.

This isn't super hard.

And those tons of websites are liable for their misinformation. It's probably not worth suing some random blog because the author probably doesn't have money or lives in Russia. But Google has lots of money and a legal presence in almost every jurisdiction.

It's why people say "Donald Trump was held civilly liable for sexual assault in the E Jean Carroll case" instead of "Donald Trump raped E Jean Carroll"

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