4 ms·

In US society/laws, it seems that the vast majority of blame is ascribed to the entity who last causes an event to occur. So the blame in the following sequence

In US society/laws, it seems that the vast majority of blame is ascribed to the entity who last causes an event to occur. So the blame in the following sequence: 1. Miner mines iron 2. Manufacturer makes knife 3. Retailer sells knife to person A 4. Person A kills person B with the knife I think most people living in the US would be ok with the general idea that person A should be held responsible for killing person B, and not miner/manufacturer/retailer. Perhaps I'm wrong. Would you consider the knife retailer equivalent to the torture rack manufacture in your example?

yesenadam 6y ago
> Would you consider the knife retailer equivalent to the torture rack manufacture in your example? Not GP, but doesn't >> I think it's pretty straightforward to assign more or less blame depending on the specialization of the technology for the purpose of doing something evil answer your question?
- djoldman 6y ago
  I guess I'm saying that it doesn't seem so straightforward to me. I think that "depending on the specialization of the technology for the purpose of doing something evil" merely shifts the question to multiple questions: 1. What does "specialization of the technology" mean? 2. Can technologies have multiple specializations? 3. What does evil mean? 4. Even if we had a perfect translation between "specialization" and "evil," if a technology has multiple specializations, which controls? The most evil? Does this require us to predict which specializations are most likely to be used?
eeZah7Ux 6y ago
Not so fast. Virtually everywhere there are concepts like "accessory to murder", "criminal organization" and many more.
- djoldman 6y ago
  Definitely. Also my example was fairly simplistic. However, to my knowledge, neither of "accessory to murder" and "criminal organization" have been applied to the manufacturer of a legal-to-own object. This comment is meant to make an analogy between the manufacturer of a legal-to-own object and the publishers of an ML algorithm.
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yesenadam 6y ago

> Would you consider the knife retailer equivalent to the torture rack manufacture in your example? Not GP, but doesn't >> I think it's pretty straightforward to assign more or less blame depending on the specialization of the technology for the purpose of doing something evil answer your question?

djoldman 6y ago
I guess I'm saying that it doesn't seem so straightforward to me. I think that "depending on the specialization of the technology for the purpose of doing something evil" merely shifts the question to multiple questions: 1. What does "specialization of the technology" mean? 2. Can technologies have multiple specializations? 3. What does evil mean? 4. Even if we had a perfect translation between "specialization" and "evil," if a technology has multiple specializations, which controls? The most evil? Does this require us to predict which specializations are most likely to be used?

eeZah7Ux 6y ago

Not so fast. Virtually everywhere there are concepts like "accessory to murder", "criminal organization" and many more.

djoldman 6y ago
Definitely. Also my example was fairly simplistic. However, to my knowledge, neither of "accessory to murder" and "criminal organization" have been applied to the manufacturer of a legal-to-own object. This comment is meant to make an analogy between the manufacturer of a legal-to-own object and the publishers of an ML algorithm.

deleted 6y ago

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