Right, but the distinction of "asking" isn't a legal one I'm aware of. I don't think it matters. If 100,000 people "ask" the same question on Bing and get the same inaccurate result, what's the difference between that and publishing a fact that gets seen by 100,000 people? There isn't one.
And Microsoft needs to tread a very fine line between "use our useful tool!" and "our tool is false!" Which I'm not sure will be possible legally, and is probably why Google has been holding back. Bing is clearly intended for information retrieval, not for generating fictional results "for entertainment purposes only", and disclaimers aren't as legally watertight as you seem to think they are.
>I don't think it matters. If 100,000 people "ask" the same question on Bing and get the same inaccurate result, what's the difference between that and publishing a fact that gets seen by 100,000 people? There isn't one.
Of course there is a difference.
Publishing an article is literal intent. The premise is you researched or have knowledge on a topic, you write it, you fact check it, and it's put out there for people to see.
An AI which consumes a bunch of data and then tries to be able to respond to an infinite number of questions has no intention of harm doing and you can't even call it gross negligence. It's not being negligent- it's doing exactly what it's supposed to do.. it might just be wrong.
I'm not sure in what universe you think those are the same thing.
Now if I ask the AI to write a paper about the forecast of a company, and I just take the result and put it into a newspaper where it's assumed it's been fact checked and all that, sure that's completely different.
>disclaimers aren't as legally watertight as you seem to think they are
I guess you know more than Microsoft's lawyers. I'm sure they didn't think about this at all when releasing it....
> has no intention of harm doing and you can't even call it gross negligence
You certainly can call it gross negligence if Microsoft totally ignored the likely outcome that people would come to harm because they would reasonably interpret its answers as true.
The intent here is with Microsoft releasing this at all, not intent on any specific answer.
> I'm not sure in what universe you think those are the same thing.
I think many users in this universe will just ask Bing a question and think it's providing factual answers, or at least answers sourced from a website, and not just invented out of whole cloth.
> I guess you know more than Microsoft's lawyers.
No, I was pointing out that Google seemed to be treading more cautiously (the law here as clearly yet to be tested), and that the disclaimers you were proposing aren't 100% ironclad.
Anyways, I was just trying to answer your question on how Microsoft might be sued for libel. But for some reason you're attacking me, claiming I'm "making things up in my head" and that I "know more than Microsoft lawyers". So I'm not going to explain anything else. I've given clear explanations as to how this is a legal gray area, but you don't seem interested.
And Microsoft needs to tread a very fine line between "use our useful tool!" and "our tool is false!" Which I'm not sure will be possible legally, and is probably why Google has been holding back. Bing is clearly intended for information retrieval, not for generating fictional results "for entertainment purposes only", and disclaimers aren't as legally watertight as you seem to think they are.