Original search before Google started trying to provide their own answers was purely pointing to relevant pages, even the first iterations of the first results being replaced by the result Google believed provided the correct answer could be pointed to as simply providing an answer someone else wrote (and to my knowledge was mostly fact based questions; birth dates, etc that are hard to categorize as defamatory). Now Gemini is combining and mixing together multiple sources to provide a new amalgam answer that IMO is distinct enough, and applied to touchier subjects importantly because they're treating the search bar like you're talking directly to Gemini, that it crosses a line between referencing speech by other people without endorsing (OG Search) and having the company produce speech about the search (new Gemini infested Search).
> was google search responsible for surfacing correct answers
No, as the article lays out, google hallucinated facts that werent present in source material and so at that point the court found them liable for that.
Previous protections existed for search because it has been argued (and agreed) that they are merely a vessel for showing the content to the user. But when they begin to editorialize and reword the content to show their own version of the content (the AI summary) those protections dont apply even if the AI summary is shown in the same UI as search.
No, Google search was simply repeating quotes from other websites - those other websites would be responsible for their content. Now that Google is manufacturing answers using their own LLM, they are responsible for whatever results that produces.
There isn't someone at a keyboard typing content. It's still just search, repeating quotes from other websites. The difference is that the algorithms have turned lossy, so the quotes are not always preserved in their original form.
Obviously, I understand that and maybe you shouldn't have cut short the quote from my comment as that demonstrates exactly and precisely what is going on.
i.e.
> Now that Google is manufacturing answers using their own LLM
To be honest, I find it somewhat rude that you select a portion of what I wrote and then criticise it.
Equally obvious is that it doesn't matter what you do or don't understand. Nor does it matter if you find something to be rude. The comments, they are not written for anyone in particular. This is a public forum. Comments are there for all.
Look... its clear you didnt read the article. The point of contention is that google _hallucinated_ facts. As in, website 1 said company A exists and website 2 said company B committed a crime and now googles AI summary says company A committed a crime while linking website 1 and 2.
The court found google to be liable for that, because company A has no other recourse otherwise. Which website operator was the company supposed to contact to remove this "false" information? It only exists in the aether of google search results, and only as a side effect of them adding functionality into that when someone is searching.