AI and Liability

Simon Willison's Blog News

Summary

Bruce Schneier comments on a German ruling holding Google liable for errors in its AI overviews, arguing that AI agents should be treated as agents of their deployers.

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# AI and Liability Source: [https://simonwillison.net/2026/Jun/25/ai-and-liability/](https://simonwillison.net/2026/Jun/25/ai-and-liability/) 25th June 2026 \- Link Blog **[AI and Liability](https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2026/06/ai-and-liability.html)**\. Bruce Schneier on the recent[German ruling](https://the-decoder.com/landmark-german-ruling-declares-googles-ai-overviews-are-googles-own-words-and-makes-it-liable-for-false-answers/)that Google be held liable for errors introduced in their AI overviews: > AI agents are agents of the person or organization that deploys them—and should be treated by the law as such\. If a company hired human writers to write its summaries, that company would be liable for inaccuracies in those summaries\. \[\.\.\.\] To allow businesses to hide behind the excuse of faulty AI in those same circumstances would be a massive handout to companies, and would introduce disastrous incentives for corporate misbehavior\. Why hire human writers, lawyers or doctors when AIs are not only cheaper, but also absolve employers whenever they make a mistake?

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