Google has filed a motion to dismiss a defamation lawsuit brought by Robby Starbuck, an activist best known for his opposition to corporate diversity initiatives. Starbuck claims the company’s artificial intelligence wrongfully linked him to accusations of sexual assault and white nationalism.
He’s asking for $15 million in damages. Google, for its part, says his claims come down to a “misuse of developer tools” — essentially arguing that Starbuck manipulated the AI into producing misleading outputs himself. The company also notes he hasn’t revealed which prompts he used, nor identified anyone who was actually misled by the alleged associations. Starbuck has not responded to requests for comment.
Meta faced similar allegations and chose a different road. Google is doing the opposite — at least for now — and taking the fight to court.
