I find it obvious that if a person allowed an agent to do things on behalf of themselves or their company (e.g. send emails, sign contracts, update websites, etc.), they are responsible for the results.
I agree in principle that the buck has to stop somewhere, but taking full responsibility for the actions of a fundamentally statistical system that you didn't build and have no interpretability of is uncomfortably risky for most parties, at least for anything above low stakes tasks.
> taking full responsibility ... is uncomfortably risky
I look forward to someone building an agent, getting criminally charged for actions it takes, and then trying to use this argument in court.
"your honor, I'm uncomfortable being held responsible for this"
people are responsible for the actions they take. hiding behind "I just created an agent, then the agent committed the crime" is simply never going to fly.
in the real world, outside the Silicon Valley "agentic everything" filter bubble, this is a laughable question.
try to argue that you shouldn't be charged with attempted murder, because you didn't stab someone directly, instead you built a Rube Goldberg machine and the final step of the machine did the stabbing.
and likewise, try to argue that you didn't commit tax fraud or whatever, because there was actually a Rube Goldberg machine built out of GPUs in between you and the fraudulent documents. both attempts will be equally successful.
I find it obvious that if a person allowed an agent to do things on behalf of themselves or their company (e.g. send emails, sign contracts, update websites, etc.), they are responsible for the results.
You.
I agree in principle that the buck has to stop somewhere, but taking full responsibility for the actions of a fundamentally statistical system that you didn't build and have no interpretability of is uncomfortably risky for most parties, at least for anything above low stakes tasks.
> taking full responsibility ... is uncomfortably risky
I look forward to someone building an agent, getting criminally charged for actions it takes, and then trying to use this argument in court.
"your honor, I'm uncomfortable being held responsible for this"
people are responsible for the actions they take. hiding behind "I just created an agent, then the agent committed the crime" is simply never going to fly.
in the real world, outside the Silicon Valley "agentic everything" filter bubble, this is a laughable question.
try to argue that you shouldn't be charged with attempted murder, because you didn't stab someone directly, instead you built a Rube Goldberg machine and the final step of the machine did the stabbing.
and likewise, try to argue that you didn't commit tax fraud or whatever, because there was actually a Rube Goldberg machine built out of GPUs in between you and the fraudulent documents. both attempts will be equally successful.
You probably shouldn't use a system if you don't understand what it might do. You are the culpable force setting the action into motion.
It depends on if it has a Letter of Marque from Trump and who is the injured party ?