Who Pays When A.I. Is Wrong?
Who Pays When A.I. Is Wrong?
New court cases seek to define content created by artificial intelligence as defamatory — a novel concept that has captivated some legal experts.
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/12/business/media/ai-defamation-libel-slander.html
By Ken Bensinger
Nov. 12, 2025
Leer en español
Sales representatives for Wolf River Electric, a solar contractor in Minnesota, noticed an unusual uptick in canceled contracts late last year. When they pressed the former customers for an explanation, the answers left them floored.
The clients said they had bailed after learning from Google searches that the company settled a lawsuit with the state attorney general over deceptive sales practices. But the company had never been sued by the government, let alone settled a case involving such claims.
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Last month, Mr. Starbuck also sued Google over its A.I. In the defamation suit, which seeks $15 million in damages, he claimed that Google’s large language models — the technology that helps power the chatbots — had made patently false statements about him. This time, however, he argued that the errors were the deliberate “result of political animus baked into its algorithm.”
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Yet as recently as Monday, a Google search of “wolf river electric complaint” produced a result saying that “the company is also facing a lawsuit from the Minnesota attorney general related to its sales practices” and suggesting that customers “file a complaint with the Minnesota attorney general’s office, as they are already involved with the company.”
-long snip snip- This article is a good read!
Ken Bensinger covers media and politics for The Times.
Jose Castañeda, Google spokesman, said Mr. Starbuck’s claims dated to 2023 and were addressed at the time. adding, “As everyone knows, if you’re creative enough, you can prompt a chatbot to say something misleading.”
“We put a lot of time and energy into building up a good name,” said Justin Nielsen, who founded Wolf River with three of his best friends in 2014 and helped it grow into the state’s largest solar contractor. “When customers see a red flag like that, it’s damn near impossible to win them back.”
Google has not yet formally responded to the complaint, but Jose Castañeda, a company spokesman, said the majority of Mr. Starbuck’s claims dated to 2023 and were addressed at the time. He added, “As everyone knows, if you’re creative enough, you can prompt a chatbot to say something misleading.”
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