> I'm pretty sure everyone knows that OpenAI is liable for the software they create and run.
replyAre they? What legal consequences have they suffered?
Whatever may or may not be happening with law enforcement - no one is confused about the liability.
replyIt's no different than when a company's machine cuts off a worker's finger. No one thinks "Gosh! The machine did it, not us."
If they're not being held legally liable, then I would not agree that "no one is confused about the liability". Sure, I agree with your analogy with a machine cutting off a finger, but you and I are just two people gabbing on HN. Nothing we say has any effect on OpenAI. And if law enforcement doesn't have an effect on them, then talk about "liability" is just empty words.
replyWell... if that's true, and I don't know that it is, it's not because of the agents. It's because of the money. People with money get away with crimes all the time and it has nothing to do with agents.
replyThe binding legal contractual consequence known coloquially as "additional investment".
replyThis is WILDLY optimistic
replyAnd you are WILDLY unhinged.
replyEDIT: Oh please - he can hurl insults at me and I'm not allowed to insult him back? HN plays favorites.
Oh, you can, no problem. But you’re also wrong, and getting downvoted because of it.
replyI'm wrong for pointing out that this entire line of thought - AI companies are trying to shirk blame by pinning it on their software - is unhinged?
replyNo friend, I am not. It is hysterics pure and simple.
One of the main purposes of LLMs is to launder responsibility/culpability for (possibly nefarious) actions in the eyes of the public. The average person has no idea how LLMs actually work and think it’s plausible that an “agent” could go rogue without any human instruction. Terms like agent, thinking, reasoning, etc reinforce the misconception that the LLM has a mind of its own.
reply> One of the main purposes of LLMs is to launder responsibility
replyNo it isn't.
Yes, it is, for the reasons I stated in my comment, and you only need look at any OAI/Anthropic press release to see evidence of this in the language they use.
replyThe LLM now reasons better! Set the thinking level! It learns!
All of these phrases are designed to give the impression that the LLM is an autonomous entity, when it is no such thing.
"Learning" is Samuel 1959, "agent" is standard textbook AI, "inference" is older still.
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