Obviously this is up to courts and juries to hammer out but...
- Your agentic loop hacked something? You're liable.
- FSD crashes? The guy in the driver's seat is liable. He/his insurance can sue Tesla to spread the liability...
Nowhere along the line will anyone go "Oh, the AI did it... whoops"
What if the human couldn't reasonably know better? Doesn't matter - If they made the same decision without AI or with old files it is still on them.
What if there's no single human decision? Someone is in charge and is responsible. The "I was ordered to" isn't a defense.
Does liability without power make sense? People executing have the power to execute. So liability. If they're executing without power that is a different liability, but a liability.
It may let the powerful off the hook - That is already a theme and AI doesn't change that, in fact, it will just be used as another scapegoat.
"When I describe East Coast vs West Coast culture to my friends I often say "The East Coast is kind but not nice, the West Coast is nice but not kind," and East Coasters immediately get it. West Coasters get mad."
Re. big pharma, imagine how weary the roughly 400k families of people who dies feel.
"Three major drug distributors and the pharmaceutical giant Johnson & Johnson have agreed to a $26 billion settlement with states to resolve thousands of lawsuits over the country's opioid crisis, officials announced Wednesday."
None of these executives were anonymous or ever had to be. They made a ton of money doing bad things, they'll keep most of the money and they'll never go to prison.
They way you deal with this is, obviously in my mind, through the rule of law and a robust functioning society that regulates commerce. Not wild-west free market.
My point being, this went on for a long time before they got "busted" and the bank people knew who they were dealing with.
They didn't have to use crypto or tor or whatever to stay anonymous. They just used cash, everyone knew each other. They probably had dinners with coke and champagne. And when they did get "busted", somehow no one goes to prison, there's a small fine (relatively speaking), and everyone walks.
My guess is they're all still in business doing the same thing. The bankers, the regulators, the cartel people...
Or you can just be a known drug lord, launder billions of USD through a respected international bank, no one goes to jail, small fine, and they're probably still laundering 10 years later and no one cares. No one is anonymous. They're probably all using SMS and corporate email.
Sell a little bit of drugs through the silk road and you'll get royally f-ed! Sell all the opioids in the world through a public pharma corp and you can keep enjoying your jet-set life and yacht.
The allegedly smartest people in the world are focusing on the dumbest problems while being reamed by the frat-boys that went to Wall Street and Politics, guns and drugs. LULZ.
- Your agentic loop hacked something? You're liable. - FSD crashes? The guy in the driver's seat is liable. He/his insurance can sue Tesla to spread the liability...
Nowhere along the line will anyone go "Oh, the AI did it... whoops"