posted in Technology
AI agents aren’t legally responsible for any harm that they cause, experts say. So who is?
www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/aug/13/ai-agents-arent-legally-responsible-for-any-harm-that-they-cause-experts-say-so-who-is
The people who use it to do things, obviously. Just like how cameras aren’t responsible for the photos that are taken with them, photoshop isn’t responsible for the images made with it, and knives aren’t responsible for the things that they cut, AI isn’t responsible for the stuff it outputs - the person controlling it is.
Replying to @LilBobbyTables@lemmy.today
Question is: Who is the person controlling the AI?
The one that allowed the agent to do stuff on its own?
The one that wrote the sandbox, that didn’t work?
The one that wrote the user prompt?
The one that wrote the system prompt?
The one that provides the tools to the AI agent to do stuff?
The one that hosts the model?
The one that fine-tuned or post trained the model?
The one that pretrained the model?
The people that provided the input data to the model?
You can be sure the providers will make sure they’re not legally responsible and that the system prompt has been reviewed by the Legal Dept. So it’s you, the user.
Usually sure, but as we see with drive assistants, getting more and more advanced, and potentially resist the control of the driver, then the manufacturer could become liable.
But as we see with drive assistants, the person in the drivers seat (or the registered owner of the car) is responsible.
The person that asked it to do something and gave it permission to do it.