Source: Reason

On March 12, 2026, a Nanjing court concluded that an AI-generated statement falsely asserting that a lawyer had been sentenced to three years' imprisonment constituted defamation and ordered Baidu to issue a written apology to Li Xiaoliang. The court drew a legal distinction between ordinary search suggestions (such as “related searches”), which it did not find infringing, and the relevant “AI Smart Answer” content, which it found had been generated through Baidu’s AI processing and synthesis of text and images. The judgment explicitly noted Baidu’s arguments about AI hallucination and technological limitations but nevertheless held the platform liable.

The Nanjing Jiangbei New Area People's Court did not award economic loss or emotional distress compensation because the plaintiff failed to provide sufficient evidence of such losses. Baidu appealed, and in March 2026 the Nanjing Intermediate People's Court upheld the first-instance judgment. After the judgment became effective, Baidu did not voluntarily perform it; Li Xiaoliang applied for enforcement and the court’s enforcement division informed him that the enforcement case would soon be formally accepted. The reporting (via Mengchun Zhang of JunZeJun Law Offices, China IP Case Updates) and the author characterize the decision as significant while noting that the judgment did not set out detailed standards for platform fault or the scope of platform duties in AI hallucination cases.