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FTC chair suggests AI developers should be liable for conduct of agents (www.reuters.com)
submitted 10 hours ago by to c/programming@programming.dev
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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.

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[–] 5 points 9 hours ago (3 children)

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

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  • [–] 3 points 8 hours ago (2 children)

    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.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 hour ago* (last edited 57 minutes ago) (1 child)

    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.

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