Gah, Skittens EVERYWHERE

Image credits according to the post: @yellofish

Image credits

1. The court holds Google responsible for statements made by its AI, considering them Google's statements (search engines have limited liability for results in their engine as they're the words of other sites/companies/people), meaning when their AI lies/hallucinates they're liable for the defamation/harm resulting from those statements.

2. Google's defense that customers are generally aware of the lack of reliability and are responsible for fact checking was dismissed. As the court pointed out, that would "significantly diminish" AI Search's stated purpose and it can't be distinguished from Google's business practices/statements as a search tool.

3. Studies have found about 91% of Google's everyday AI responses are accurate, leaving millions of searches per HOUR with potential liability for falsehoods. 56% of correct responses weren't supported by the sources the AI listed. Both of which mean Google is now liable for a LOT more AI "errors."

4. Google was held liable for 80% of court costs in this case and this precedent is expected to reverberate around the world. This is a massive shift from the 3rd-party search provider role Google has previously played and it comes right as they've tied ALL searches to their AI search.

For all the reasons above AND ALSO because this particular lawsuit is a defamation case

Privacy lawsuits are hard because most privacy laws are super super weak, and there's very rarely a lot of money or enforcement backing privacy laws for...twenty million reasons, really...

But defamation suits? Those have teeth.

(In large part because, at least in some countries and including in the US, defamation laws protect public figures the least - and "public figures" legally includes most if not all politicians, and a hell of a lot of other rich ppl too)

A German court has ruled that Google can be held directly liable for false claims made by its AI Overviews, a decision that could put a serious legal dent in the whole “the AI made me do it” defense. According to The Next Web, the Regional Court of Munich issued a temporary injunction after Google’s AI Overviews wrongly tied two Munich publishers to scams, subscription traps, and dubious business practices. The court treated those AI-generated summaries as Google’s own statements, not just ordinary search results pointing to third-party pages. That distinction matters. Search engines have traditionally had more protection because they index and link to other people’s content. AI Overviews changes the machinery. Google is not just showing the web anymore. It is summarizing it, rewriting it, and sometimes apparently hallucinating a tiny legal grenade into the results page.

“Of course.”

“It’s horseshit. We made it up. If the public thinks government agents go around in suits and sunglasses, we can go around in our actual uniforms and nobody will think twice about it.”

“I mean, I get it, but it’s a lot less classy.”

“Classy schmassy. I once had to smuggle an entire Neptunian armada out of Beaverlodge, Alberta. I had 20,000 warships in the back of a pickup truck, I wore the suit and nobody even asked me for a license.”

There was a furious silence as she grappled with this. Then: “Fine. Fine, I’ll wear the stupid vest.”

New Sticker design! Featuring my Marigold Dragon declaring WAR to all English sterile lawns >:D LET WILDLIFE THRIVE! Plant native plants and flowers! ✨🌱🌿🌳🌻🌼🌷💐🐛🦋🐞

I'll be selling this one on Polaris later this year! After the convention in October, I'll update this post and put the design up for order on my Redbubble shop :)

Gross Income is not the same as Profit.

Sam Raimi's Send Help, going into day 4, sits at 20mil, which is a net negative, 50% behind its 40mil budget.

Avatar, touted as the highest profiting film of all time, made a 237% net profit over its entire run.

The final Hxrry Pxtter movie made a 360% net profit.

Mark Fischbach's Iron Lung has turned a 570% net profit. In three days.

Iron Lung had basically NO advertising, and a negligible amount of merchandising. For a normal movie, that means that nobody goes to see the movie because they've never heard of it, and the movie can't cover any of the lost box office revenue with merch sales (you CAN have a box office bomb recover its budget with merch sales).

A theatrical release earning back its budget and then some on nothing but word of mouth and a loyal, pre-established fanbase is unprecedented. It doesn't happen. Ever.

Mark tried to get the movie distributed through traditional means, but got fucked over at every turn. Nobody wanted to distribute this movie. Distributors like to be able to control what is and isn't in theaters. It gives them more confidence in their bottom line and projections for how many people are going to see their movie.

This movie was distributed by the fans to over 4,000 theaters worldwide, had a domestic release around the same size as its biggest competitor that week, and made a significant profit while retaining a 50/50 split with theaters, so the theaters are making more off of that ticket than for a typical movie.

This is obviously a really complicated topic that can't just be addressed in a single list, but there are some really good tips here and they draw from some excellent leaders/activists in this area.

If this is something that you need today, I hope this list can direct you to some good resources to draw on in the future!

From the article:

OP: "Grandpa made this for Dad when he was a child, and now it's been passed down to my son."

You don't ever have to use a specific label or term

You don't need anyone's permission to call yourself queer or nonbinary or trans or enby

In fact, you don't need anyone's permission to call yourself any of those words almost by the definitions of the words themselves

There's no judge. There's no tryouts, there's no membership card, there's no applications or fees (and thank goodness for that!!!)

In fact, because gender and queerness are both, at their core, about the ways people feel inside and want to interact (with each other, with society, with their own concept of self, etc.), there are very few hard boundaries at all

Well maybe I don’t WANT to work double as hard as abled people!! Maybe I deserve a BREAK!! Maybe I’ve been working MORE THAN double as hard for MY WHOLE LIFE and it’s led me to immense burnout & caused me to develop several MORE disabilities!! Maybe I should be ACCOMMODATED so I don’t have to KILL MY BODY AND BRAIN over trying to do what abled people can do!! Maybe I DON’T have to work double as hard!! Maybe if there’s the option to let me NOT work double as hard, I should have it, because I’m already working double as hard JUST TO SURVIVE!!