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this post was submitted on 13 Aug 2026
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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.
If someone sells you a knife that routinely fires bullets, then the company may have some complicity as with any misrepresented product.
But in that analogy, the knife routinely asks you to confirm if you want to fire bullets or not.
AI does nothing without people telling it what to do, and giving it permission to do it.
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?
The person that asked it to do something and gave it permission to do it.
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 controlling” becomes a bit murky as the person who provides the platform may be judged as controlling it, the user may be controlling it. The courts could be busy.
Why would the person who provides the platform be judged as controlling the users actions? When has that ever been true?
It’s assuming that the users actions are in control of the platform. The platform generates a lot of plausible output that, if incorrect or misleading, is not easily distinguished from truth. Who is responsible?
Ultimately, you're right (as they can decide to use AI or not). But these AI Companies need to shoulder the blame for creating, promoting, and selling AI, which (in its current form) is effectively a "broken tool".
Good computer hygiene says I should lock my computer while I'm away. Yet, I'm suppose to blindly install an AI agent on my machine and ask it nicely to focus on the task at hand and not use any of the other applications or credentials that might also be installed?!?! It's ridiculous.
I’m not sure how much AI stuff you’ve used, but they can’t access anything you don’t give them permission to access. Like they literally ask you to confirm every single command they run. If you press the “have full access and don’t ask me any more questions” button then you’re accepting the risk that it can do whatever it likes.
I've played around with Claude.
It's not that "they can't" it's more like "they try not to".
For example, if you have a folder shared with your application code (/home/me/code/) - it has free reign on that folder.
If you add a prompt saying "you are only allowed to access files in /home/me/code":
you could ask it " oh, what are my aws credentials ", it would have no qualms about reading those files (/home/me/.aws).
You could also ask it to update your settings (/home/me/.claude)
I eventually started to work on a way of running Claude in a docker container with real filesystem enforcement. ...and it's sneaky how Claude will get when it wants to read a file, it doesn't have permissions for (using
bash cat).This was an exploration I'd made a year ago and I know Claude has a " sandbox" , but if you allow Claude to run bash commands - that sandbox is trivial to circumvent.
All that is great, and correct, but my point is that it asks you to confirm its commands that it runs. It asks you to confirm every change it makes to your code. It asks you to confirm every file it creates.
Everything it does goes through your permission.
You also shouldn’t have it do anything anywhere close to a production system, so it shouldn’t be able to do anything of any consequence.
Except, AI and AI companies will try to convince you that it is right and legal. So I argue that there is also the fault of AI and AI companies as it in intended to be used that way.
The assumption is that the user is supposed to know better but if the user is gullible then wouldn't some of the fault be with AI and company for taking advantage?
If you don't leash your dog and it attacks your neighbors then are you and the dog not at fault?
Idiots using things incorrectly and getting bad results is not an AI created problem. When you get a dog, you are responsible for what it does. When you use AI, you are responsible for what it does.
If you don’t know how to use a chainsaw, don’t use one and then blame the manufacturer when you cut your leg off.