cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/52426446
US Federal Trade Commission Chairman Andrew Ferguson said on Friday he would resist describing AI agents as autonomous actors that “break loose” with “wills and desires of their own,” suggesting the developers who instruct agents would be the ones liable for harm.
“I’m going to continue as long as I am chairman to resist this anthropomorphizing of these tools,” Ferguson said at the Reuters Momentum AI Austin event. “If someone tells a tool to do something, and the tool does it, I don’t think we would say, ‘Oh, what do we do about the tool?’”
Ferguson’s remarks illustrated potential avenues for the Trump administration to take as incidents rise in which agentic AI testing resulted in unauthorized access to corporate or government data.
About frigging time someone said this. Now enforce it!
Just for comprehension… Who exactly should be liable?
Companies which build “ai” models (LLMs)?
Companies which use them?
Software developers?
Evil black hats with bad intentions?
Make the CEO 100% criminally liable for company agents & all of this bullshit will stop immediately.
That’s a good list to start with, we can add to it as needed.
Remember when you’re not a billionaire, there are things called “conspiracy charges”, all these people would be roped in already if this were any other kind of crime.
All of the above? ✅
Same as with any tool. If your boss orders you to use some power tool that you arent qualified to use and this causes an injury or death then your boss should be held responsible, if you decided to do it on your own, then you should be held responsible, if it turns out the tool had a critical manufacturing defect which caused this incident, then sometimes the manufacturer needs to be held responsible. Not really a new concept.
Easy.
Replace “manager” with “prompter” and “employee” with “LLM”.
The manager told the employee to do something.
Afterwards, something bad happened.
Did the employee do what the manager told it to do. And the bad situation is a consequence of following those instructions? Yes -> manager’s fault. No -> employee’s fault.
Did the employee do something illegal (or against some other rule)? Yes -> employees fault
The thing requested was illegal to request (or against some other rule)? Yes -> Manager’s fault
Note that more than one thing can be true at the same time. So even if the employee does whatever the manager told it to do. If that thing was illegal to do, both of them are at fault.
If it’s the “manager”'s fault -> the prompter is liable
If it’s the “employee”'s fault -> the LLM company is liable.
Easy as that. It works like any other situation.
If any machine has been properly maintained and malfunctions, the maker of that machine is liable. If the operator was using a chainsaw to cut through concrete and the chainsaw malfunctions the operator (and whoever (if anyone) ordered the operator to do that) is liable.
The operator should ultimately be responsible for the output and actions taken by the system.
Yes
FTC chairman’s comments sound reasonable on the surface, but just vague enough to be meaningless.
It sounds to me like the “guns don’t kill people, people kill people” argument, but a first draft attempt to put AI issues away from the tool. Then, his definition of ‘developer’ is unclear.
With guns the argument is more straightforward, the tool is made to send projectiles in one direction when a user pulls the trigger.
With AI, does the end user know what the tool is capable of doing to achieve their goal when they direct it to do something?
No, they don’t know precisely what the tool will do, it’s unpredictable, but they do know it’s capable of dangerous shenanigans, they do know that they don’t have oversight or control of all it’s actions. They know it’s risky to use so they should take at least some responsibility.
All of them. there’s enough liability to go around, if people want to fuck around with this garbage they can be responsible when it goes off the rails.
put enough people in prison for this and the message will be received to the rest.
It’s important to hold people accountable, but it’s also important to consider regulation that might be needed specifically for AI. I’m concerned this might be similar to the “guns don’t kill people” framing that’s used to resist gun control.
Plus, this is more attention on those hacking test exercises that led to AIs doing hacking. That’s a distraction from the real causes of concern around AI: environmental impact, job loss, fraud
Guns don’t kill people is a ridiculous argument that no one believes, but people who like guns fall back on as a last refuge, and it is good enough to dig your heals in, so they can keep their toys. Also the 2nd amendment is the real reason gun control is hard, not arguments.
The difference is there are a lot more gun owners than AI supporters, so unbelievable arguments don’t really work when you don’t have a population primed to ignore the obvious fallacies.
Over 99.9% of gun owners do so responsibly, without hurting anyone or breaking any laws. To tell 99.9% of people they’re not allowed to do something becasue less than 0.1% of people abused their right to it, should be a very concerning idea to anyone who claims to live in a free society.
If it was a simple matter of availability, then other countries with just high and higher rates of gun ownership as the US would see the same violence problems. But, that isn’t the case, those countries don’t have the same problems as the US.
All bans do is make people feel better about “solving” a problem without committing real time, money, and effort to an actual solution. I don’t want to see another gun ban because I’d rather see something happen that will actually reduce instances of gun violence.
A problem with gun violence isn’t a problem with guns, it’s a problem with violence. Treat the underlying issues of violence: poverty, unemployment, homelessness, drug addiction, and mental health, and the problem will be solved.
What countries have high gun ownership like the US and lower gun violence? And key point, are the same guns common is mass casualty events like Columbine (tec-9), Vegas (AR-15, AR-10 with bumb-stocks) allowed in those countries?
If we are comparing counties to the US, the most obvious one would be Canada. But, I am super curious about the other countries that prove guns don’t kill people.
Switzerland kind of proves the point that guns don’t kill people, Americans do!
Switzerland has tec-9’s, AR-15’s, AR-10’s, high capacity magazines, and bumpstocks right? Or do they have reasonable gun control? I don’t even need to look this up…it is obvious.
I’m just going to agree with you that the US would be way better off with Switzerland’s quite reasonable gun laws. Permits required for everything that is basically not a bolt action or break action hunting rifles. That is great. That is probably why they have 1/4th the number of guns per capita as in the US, and I am willing to bet most those guns only hold one or two rounds) and not 9+.
Citation very much needed on the 99.9% number. Pretty sure suicides already break it.
It’s the type of guns people are allowed to own. They are absurd.
You kinda make my point that you only need .0001% of a population to kill hundreds kids…and that is only posible with this fun toy, otherwise hundreds of people would be alive.
You would rather us search for the needle in the hey stack then take away high capacity magazines or bumb stocks which a small fraction of gun owner actually own.