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The other side of this coin is that there is an incentive for decision makers to use computers, precisely to not be held accountable. This is captured pretty we

The other side of this coin is that there is an incentive for decision makers to use computers, precisely to not be held accountable. This is captured pretty well by this quote by Neil Postman in Technopoly: >[B]ureaucrats can be expected to embrace a technology that helps to create the illusion that decisions are not under their control. Because of its seeming intelligence and impartiality, a computer has an almost magical tendency to direct attention away from the people in charge of bureaucratic functions and toward itself, as if the computer were the true source of authority. A bureaucrat armed with a computer is the unacknowledged legislator of our age, and a terrible burden to bear. We cannot dismiss the possibility that, if Adolf Eichmann had been able to say that it was not he but a battery of computers that directed the Jews to the appropriate crematoria, he might never have been asked to answer for his actions. How does one counteract that self-serving incentive? Doesn't seem like we've found a good way considering we seem to be spearheading straight into techno-feudalism.

BiteCode_dev 2y ago
Precisely what americans state you should not do: regulate. There should be laws stating who has skin in the game, maybe by stating that if you take responsability for the profit by having a high salary, you also take responsability for the damage with prison.
- buran77 2y ago
  > Precisely what americans state you should not do: regulate. Everyone thinks the same until they're screwed over and then they want someone to do something about that. The big misunderstanding is that "regulation" is just the stuff you don't like. In reality it's everywhere the state gets involved. Every rule that the state ever put in place is regulation. Even the little ones. Even the ones that you like. Computers cannot be held accountable more than a car, or a gun, or an automated assembly line can. That's why you have a human there no matter what, being legally accountable for everything. The human's rank and power defines how much of the risk they are allowed to or must take.
  - immibis 2y ago
    Libertarians love certain regulations - mostly the ones where the government allocates some stuff as "theirs" and uses violence to prevent other people from using it without paying them a fee.
    - bitcoin_anon 2y ago
      Please go on about the regulations that libertarians love around allocation of stuff.
      - dsr_ 2y ago
        Sure, it's called "property" and "contracts".
        bitcoin_anon 2y ago
        But these aren’t about the government allocating stuff.
        immibis 2y ago
        Absolutely they are.
        bitcoin_anon 2y ago
        allocate: distribute according to a plan or set apart for a special purpose
        immibis 2y ago
        Yep, when the government makes a plan like "5 hotdogs per person per week" that's allocation, and when the government makes a plan like "each 100x100 meter plot to the highest bidder" that's allocation, and when the government makes a plan like "special rights to the creator or their nominee until 70 years after they are dead" that's allocation too.
- crabbone 2y ago
  > Precisely what americans state you should not do Regulations, on a large scale, were pioneered by America as a response to Great Depression. For a long time Europe was behind the US on this front. Regulations, actually, worked miracles for the US. But two things happened: early success that prevented further improvements (medical care), and mechanistic misapplication of the practice (over-regulating businesses like hairdressing etc.) Blinded by the later, a lot of Americans believe that regulations, in general, are bad. Well, now we see a small group of people who stands to gain a lot from deregulating many aspects of American life is about to rob blind the remaining very large group of American people :|
lloeki 2y ago
> [B]ureaucrats can be expected to embrace a technology that helps to create the illusion that decisions are not under their control Isn't it the responsibility of the bureaucrat to use a computer system and whatever its output is? "GPS said I should drive off of a cliff" doesn't seem like a very potent argument to dismiss decisional responsibility. The driver is still responsible for where the car goes. The only case where the responsibility would shift to the computer - or rather the humans having made the computerized thingy - would be a Pentium FDIV-class bug, i.e computer system produces incorrect output+ from correct input, from which an earnest decision is then based on. + assuming it is indistinguishable from correct output.
- svilen_dobrev 2y ago
  > "GPS said I should drive off of a cliff" for a bureaucrat, it's "GPS said WHO-EVER-ELSE should drive off of a cliff." Their problem. Adding, Have a good day..
- _Algernon_ 2y ago
  The difference is that bureaucrats make decisions on behalf of others so incentives are less aligned or not aligned at all. If you drive a car and the GPS tells you to drive of the cliff, you wont do it because you don't want to die. If some bureaucrat rejects somebody's health care claim leading to them dying prematurely, it's just a normal Tuesday.
- TeMPOraL 2y ago
  Try to do something with a bank in a branch office. Clerk: can't do anything about it, the system doesn't let me. I can get you the manager. Branch manager: well, I can't do anything about it, "the computer says no". Let me make a call to regional office ... (10 minutes of dialing and 30 minutes of conversation later) ... The system clearly says X, and the process is such that Y cannot be done before Z clears. Even the regional office can't speed Z up. You: explains again why this is all bullshit, and Z shouldn't even be possible to be triggered for you Branch manager: I can put a request with the bank's IT department to look into it, but they won't read it until at least tomorrow morning, and probably won't process it earlier than in a week or so. At this point, you either give up or send your dispute to the central office via registered mail (and, depending on its nature, might want to retain a lawyer). Most customers who didn't give up earlier, will give up here. Was the system wrong? Probably. Like everyone, banks too have bugs in the system, on top of a steady stream of human errors. Thanks to centralized IT systems, the low-level employees are quite literally unable to help you navigate weird "corner case" scenarios. The System is big, complicated, handles everything, no one except a small number of people is allowed to touch it, and those people are mostly techies and not bank management. In this setup, anyone can individually claim they're either powerless or not in the position to make those decisions, and keep redirecting you around from one department to another until you either get tired or threaten to sue.
throwawayffffas 2y ago
> How does one counteract that self-serving incentive? One does not, one uses a computer in decision making in order to evade accountability and profits. See, Meta, Alphabet, the list goes on.
benreesman 2y ago
“I’m sorry buddy, it’s not up to me!” https://youtu.be/wGy5SGTuAGI?t=218 https://youtu.be/wGy5SGTuAGI?t=218
- amiga386 2y ago
  "Computer says no" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x0YGZPycMEU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x0YGZPycMEU See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_says_no https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_says_no and the legal response to the real-world problem, the right not to be subject to a decision based solely on automated processing: GDPR Article 22 (https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reg/2016/679/oj#d1e2838-1-1 https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reg/2016/679/oj#d1e2838-1-1)
pj_mukh 2y ago
Technology has nothing to do with this. Before technology there was "McKinsey told me to do this". Abrogation of liability is a tale as old as time.
- bluefirebrand 2y ago
  At least with a fully human chain of responsibility, the buck stops with someone A computer cannot ever be made to atone for it's misdeeds Humans can
  - greentxt 2y ago
    Not really. The vast majority of adults are not at all accountable in today's society. We blame.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - WJW 2y ago
    Someone has never encountered bureaucracy I see. Human chains of responsibility manage to dissolve blame into nothingness all the time.
    - bluefirebrand 2y ago
      Blame is not the same thing as accountability In situations where accountability is absolutely required, you will find that people are held accountable Often they are scapegoats, but that is a different problem
      - Tostino 2y ago
        Having a scapegoat take the fall doesn't count as `accountability` in my book.
- codr7 2y ago
  Aka the Nuremberg defense; sometimes it works, sometimes not so much.
martythemaniak 2y ago
Funny, I'd say the above passage is the very reason we're headed towards techno-feaudalism. If you believe some mid-level bureaucrat with a computer is history's greatest oppressor, then why not have the world's richest people ransack the government? After all, they are the people's heroes, valiantly fighting oppression.
- _Algernon_ 2y ago
  Have we watched the same events unfold? Virtually every tech CEO was standing behind Trump at the inauguration. The takeover is the tech feudalism. They are not the heroes.
elihu 2y ago
The defense against this is to have very clear legal principles that identify the person or people fully accountable for the machine's decisions. Admittedly this may result in some strange results if followed to its logical conclusion, like a product manager at a self-driving car company being the recipient of ten thousand traffic tickets.
- Xmd5a 2y ago
  >identify the person or people fully accountable for the machine's decisions. Which required more tech, not less.
  - dartos 2y ago
    Not necessarily. Tbh I’m in favor of holding C-suite responsible for the actions of their company, unless the company has extremely clear bylaws regarding accountability. If, say, a health insurance provider was using an entirely automated claim review process that falsely denies claims, I think the C-level people should be responsible.
- daveguy 2y ago
  > product manager at a self-driving car company being the recipient of ten thousand traffic tickets. I'm the case of self driving cars, the company itself could be held liable. Everyone invested in the company who puts a bad product in the market should be financially impacted. The oligarchy we are heading for wants no accountability or oversight -- all profit, no penalty.
- lenerdenator 2y ago
  > The defense against this is to have very clear legal principles that identify the person or people fully accountable for the machine's decisions. Most legal principles are designed to reduce liability. That's the whole point of incorporation, for example.
  - ajb 2y ago
    Incorporation is to reduce liability for debt. It's not supposed to reduce liability for criminal negligence. Or other criminal offences.
Xmd5a 2y ago
It can also dramatically lower corruption. Can't receive a bribe from someone whose visa has expired when this person's arrest was consigned in a database.
patrick451 2y ago
We counteract this but not letting bureaucrats make rules in the first place. Overturning Chevron was a step in this direction, but we need to go much, much further.
- Attrecomet 2y ago
  Overturning Chevron was specifically a giant step INTO techno-feudalism, since it means the oligarchs can only be reigned in if Congress, full of (at best generalist) career politicians, understand a technical or regulatory problem deeply enough to specifically craft legislation that literally gets it right on its own. Chevron never was the problem.
EGreg 2y ago
You mean like when corporations downsize and bosses / managers fire employees, we say that “immigrants / machines / overseas people etc. took their jobs”? But when corporations grow we say it was the corporations that “created tons of jobs”? In societies that want to promote capitalism and corporatism the everyday language we use reflects this promotion.
TeMPOraL 2y ago
> How does one counteract that self-serving incentive? Doesn't seem like we've found a good way considering we seem to be spearheading straight into techno-feudalism. The EU is trying right now. Discussed right now over here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42916849 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42916849 See: https://artificialintelligenceact.eu/chapter/1/ https://artificialintelligenceact.eu/chapter/1/ and https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/qanda_21_1683 https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/qanda_... AI systems are defined[0] in the Act in such a way as to capture the kind of "hands-off" decision-making systems where everyone involved could plead ignorance and put the blame on the system working in mysterious ways; it then proceeds to straight up ban a whole class of such systems, and classifies some of the rest as "high risk", to be subject to extra limitations and oversight. This is nowhere near 100% a solution, but at least in the limited areas, it sets the right tone: it's unacceptable to have automated systems observing and passing judgement on people, based on mysterious criteria that "emerged" in training. Whatever automation is permitted in these context, is basically forced to be straightforward enough that you could trace back from the system's recommendation to specific rules that were executed and to people that put them in. -- [0] - https://artificialintelligenceact.eu/article/3/ https://artificialintelligenceact.eu/article/3/
- alephnerd 2y ago
  The EU AI Regulations has some very broad carve outs added for Law Enforcement, such as real-time facial recognition. And individual EU states still have the authority to carve out exceptions as they wish. Like every other form of tech regulation done by the EU, it's all bark but no bite because politicians of individual countries have more power than MEPs. What's to stop Fidesz, PiS (if they return to power), etc from carving out broad exceptions for their own Interior Ministries? They've already done this with spyware like Pegasus. Instead of techno-feudalism, it's basically techno-paternalism which is essentially the same thing. In both cases, individual agency is being limited by someone else.
  - dasil003 2y ago
    At least someone is trying. I don't see anyone doing better anywhere else in the world.
deegles 2y ago
By making someone responsible for decisions no matter the source. Perhaps someone who could be the "lead" or maybe "chief" person in charge of making decisions for the business...
number6 2y ago
The unaccountably machine is a good book on this
- Temporary_31337 2y ago
  Good about describing the problem but the part with solutions is a bit unrealistic
forgetfreeman 2y ago
Nothing short of a neo-luddite social movement would do the trick and even that would at best help a vanishingly small minority of the populace willing to make the kind of lifestyle changes necessary to support the ideology. Taken as a large enough group people kinda suck, they're kinda useless, and definitely lazy. It's a problem our species has been struggling with at least as long as we've had systems of writing available to document the failures of society. One could argue society is nothing more than our attempt to make people suck less.
jimbokun 2y ago
Sarbanes Oxley in required CEO and CFO to certify company financial statements specifically to avoid the possibility of them pleading that rogue employees acted independently. Seems like a similar legal framework could require that decision makers are held accountable for any decisions made by an AI under their control.
- dragonwriter 2y ago
  > Seems like a similar legal framework could require that decision makers are held accountable for any decisions made by an AI under their control. If you delegate a decision to an AI, you are simply making the decision while trusting the AI, and should not be any less responsible than if you made the decision by any other means. (If you are directed by a superior authority to allow an AI to make a decision but are assigned nominal responsibility anyway, though, that superior authority is, in fact, making the decision by delegating to the AI bypassing you, to anticipate the obvious “install a human scapegoat organizationally between the people actually making the decision to use the AI and the AI itself response”.)
  - Pet_Ant 2y ago
    > If you are directed by a superior authority to allow an AI to make a decision but are assigned nominal responsibility anyway, though, that superior authority is, in fact, making the decision by delegating to the AI bypassing you, to anticipate the obvious “install a human scapegoat organizationally between the people actually making the decision to use the AI and the AI itself response. Solution is that company won’t hire you unless you are willing to take the blame and rubber stamp the AI’s decisions. Unemployed people are not in a position to protest. Also, the point of AI is that the decisions are too complex to justify. They are grey and iffy. We don’t usually hold people accountable for anything that nebulous. Wrongly deny someone insurance coverage and they die? No consequences even without AI Sadly at the scale of the world, we take shortcuts and need to be effective. As anyone with rare disease will tell you doctors do for ages till they get a proper diagnosis.
    - r14c 2y ago

BiteCode_dev 2y ago

Precisely what americans state you should not do: regulate. There should be laws stating who has skin in the game, maybe by stating that if you take responsability for the profit by having a high salary, you also take responsability for the damage with prison.

buran77 2y ago
> Precisely what americans state you should not do: regulate. Everyone thinks the same until they're screwed over and then they want someone to do something about that. The big misunderstanding is that "regulation" is just the stuff you don't like. In reality it's everywhere the state gets involved. Every rule that the state ever put in place is regulation. Even the little ones. Even the ones that you like. Computers cannot be held accountable more than a car, or a gun, or an automated assembly line can. That's why you have a human there no matter what, being legally accountable for everything. The human's rank and power defines how much of the risk they are allowed to or must take.
- immibis 2y ago
  Libertarians love certain regulations - mostly the ones where the government allocates some stuff as "theirs" and uses violence to prevent other people from using it without paying them a fee.
  - bitcoin_anon 2y ago
    Please go on about the regulations that libertarians love around allocation of stuff.
    - dsr_ 2y ago
      Sure, it's called "property" and "contracts".
      - bitcoin_anon 2y ago
        But these aren’t about the government allocating stuff.
        immibis 2y ago
        Absolutely they are.
        bitcoin_anon 2y ago
        allocate: distribute according to a plan or set apart for a special purpose
        immibis 2y ago
        Yep, when the government makes a plan like "5 hotdogs per person per week" that's allocation, and when the government makes a plan like "each 100x100 meter plot to the highest bidder" that's allocation, and when the government makes a plan like "special rights to the creator or their nominee until 70 years after they are dead" that's allocation too.
crabbone 2y ago
> Precisely what americans state you should not do Regulations, on a large scale, were pioneered by America as a response to Great Depression. For a long time Europe was behind the US on this front. Regulations, actually, worked miracles for the US. But two things happened: early success that prevented further improvements (medical care), and mechanistic misapplication of the practice (over-regulating businesses like hairdressing etc.) Blinded by the later, a lot of Americans believe that regulations, in general, are bad. Well, now we see a small group of people who stands to gain a lot from deregulating many aspects of American life is about to rob blind the remaining very large group of American people :|

lloeki 2y ago

> [B]ureaucrats can be expected to embrace a technology that helps to create the illusion that decisions are not under their control Isn't it the responsibility of the bureaucrat to use a computer system and whatever its output is? "GPS said I should drive off of a cliff" doesn't seem like a very potent argument to dismiss decisional responsibility. The driver is still responsible for where the car goes. The only case where the responsibility would shift to the computer - or rather the humans having made the computerized thingy - would be a Pentium FDIV-class bug, i.e computer system produces incorrect output+ from correct input, from which an earnest decision is then based on. + assuming it is indistinguishable from correct output.

svilen_dobrev 2y ago
> "GPS said I should drive off of a cliff" for a bureaucrat, it's "GPS said WHO-EVER-ELSE should drive off of a cliff." Their problem. Adding, Have a good day..
_Algernon_ 2y ago
The difference is that bureaucrats make decisions on behalf of others so incentives are less aligned or not aligned at all. If you drive a car and the GPS tells you to drive of the cliff, you wont do it because you don't want to die. If some bureaucrat rejects somebody's health care claim leading to them dying prematurely, it's just a normal Tuesday.
TeMPOraL 2y ago
Try to do something with a bank in a branch office. Clerk: can't do anything about it, the system doesn't let me. I can get you the manager. Branch manager: well, I can't do anything about it, "the computer says no". Let me make a call to regional office ... (10 minutes of dialing and 30 minutes of conversation later) ... The system clearly says X, and the process is such that Y cannot be done before Z clears. Even the regional office can't speed Z up. You: explains again why this is all bullshit, and Z shouldn't even be possible to be triggered for you Branch manager: I can put a request with the bank's IT department to look into it, but they won't read it until at least tomorrow morning, and probably won't process it earlier than in a week or so. At this point, you either give up or send your dispute to the central office via registered mail (and, depending on its nature, might want to retain a lawyer). Most customers who didn't give up earlier, will give up here. Was the system wrong? Probably. Like everyone, banks too have bugs in the system, on top of a steady stream of human errors. Thanks to centralized IT systems, the low-level employees are quite literally unable to help you navigate weird "corner case" scenarios. The System is big, complicated, handles everything, no one except a small number of people is allowed to touch it, and those people are mostly techies and not bank management. In this setup, anyone can individually claim they're either powerless or not in the position to make those decisions, and keep redirecting you around from one department to another until you either get tired or threaten to sue.

throwawayffffas 2y ago

> How does one counteract that self-serving incentive? One does not, one uses a computer in decision making in order to evade accountability and profits. See, Meta, Alphabet, the list goes on.

benreesman 2y ago

“I’m sorry buddy, it’s not up to me!” https://youtu.be/wGy5SGTuAGI?t=218 https://youtu.be/wGy5SGTuAGI?t=218

amiga386 2y ago
"Computer says no" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x0YGZPycMEU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x0YGZPycMEU See also https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_says_no https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_says_no and the legal response to the real-world problem, the right not to be subject to a decision based solely on automated processing: GDPR Article 22 (https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reg/2016/679/oj#d1e2838-1-1 https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/reg/2016/679/oj#d1e2838-1-1)

pj_mukh 2y ago

Technology has nothing to do with this. Before technology there was "McKinsey told me to do this". Abrogation of liability is a tale as old as time.

bluefirebrand 2y ago
At least with a fully human chain of responsibility, the buck stops with someone A computer cannot ever be made to atone for it's misdeeds Humans can
- greentxt 2y ago
  Not really. The vast majority of adults are not at all accountable in today's society. We blame.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- WJW 2y ago
  Someone has never encountered bureaucracy I see. Human chains of responsibility manage to dissolve blame into nothingness all the time.
  - bluefirebrand 2y ago
    Blame is not the same thing as accountability In situations where accountability is absolutely required, you will find that people are held accountable Often they are scapegoats, but that is a different problem
    - Tostino 2y ago
      Having a scapegoat take the fall doesn't count as `accountability` in my book.
codr7 2y ago
Aka the Nuremberg defense; sometimes it works, sometimes not so much.

martythemaniak 2y ago

Funny, I'd say the above passage is the very reason we're headed towards techno-feaudalism. If you believe some mid-level bureaucrat with a computer is history's greatest oppressor, then why not have the world's richest people ransack the government? After all, they are the people's heroes, valiantly fighting oppression.

_Algernon_ 2y ago
Have we watched the same events unfold? Virtually every tech CEO was standing behind Trump at the inauguration. The takeover is the tech feudalism. They are not the heroes.

elihu 2y ago

The defense against this is to have very clear legal principles that identify the person or people fully accountable for the machine's decisions. Admittedly this may result in some strange results if followed to its logical conclusion, like a product manager at a self-driving car company being the recipient of ten thousand traffic tickets.

Xmd5a 2y ago
>identify the person or people fully accountable for the machine's decisions. Which required more tech, not less.
- dartos 2y ago
  Not necessarily. Tbh I’m in favor of holding C-suite responsible for the actions of their company, unless the company has extremely clear bylaws regarding accountability. If, say, a health insurance provider was using an entirely automated claim review process that falsely denies claims, I think the C-level people should be responsible.
daveguy 2y ago
> product manager at a self-driving car company being the recipient of ten thousand traffic tickets. I'm the case of self driving cars, the company itself could be held liable. Everyone invested in the company who puts a bad product in the market should be financially impacted. The oligarchy we are heading for wants no accountability or oversight -- all profit, no penalty.
lenerdenator 2y ago
> The defense against this is to have very clear legal principles that identify the person or people fully accountable for the machine's decisions. Most legal principles are designed to reduce liability. That's the whole point of incorporation, for example.
- ajb 2y ago
  Incorporation is to reduce liability for debt. It's not supposed to reduce liability for criminal negligence. Or other criminal offences.

Xmd5a 2y ago

It can also dramatically lower corruption. Can't receive a bribe from someone whose visa has expired when this person's arrest was consigned in a database.

patrick451 2y ago

We counteract this but not letting bureaucrats make rules in the first place. Overturning Chevron was a step in this direction, but we need to go much, much further.

Attrecomet 2y ago
Overturning Chevron was specifically a giant step INTO techno-feudalism, since it means the oligarchs can only be reigned in if Congress, full of (at best generalist) career politicians, understand a technical or regulatory problem deeply enough to specifically craft legislation that literally gets it right on its own. Chevron never was the problem.

EGreg 2y ago

You mean like when corporations downsize and bosses / managers fire employees, we say that “immigrants / machines / overseas people etc. took their jobs”? But when corporations grow we say it was the corporations that “created tons of jobs”? In societies that want to promote capitalism and corporatism the everyday language we use reflects this promotion.

TeMPOraL 2y ago

> How does one counteract that self-serving incentive? Doesn't seem like we've found a good way considering we seem to be spearheading straight into techno-feudalism. The EU is trying right now. Discussed right now over here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42916849 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42916849 See: https://artificialintelligenceact.eu/chapter/1/ https://artificialintelligenceact.eu/chapter/1/ and https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/qanda_21_1683 https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/qanda_... AI systems are defined[0] in the Act in such a way as to capture the kind of "hands-off" decision-making systems where everyone involved could plead ignorance and put the blame on the system working in mysterious ways; it then proceeds to straight up ban a whole class of such systems, and classifies some of the rest as "high risk", to be subject to extra limitations and oversight. This is nowhere near 100% a solution, but at least in the limited areas, it sets the right tone: it's unacceptable to have automated systems observing and passing judgement on people, based on mysterious criteria that "emerged" in training. Whatever automation is permitted in these context, is basically forced to be straightforward enough that you could trace back from the system's recommendation to specific rules that were executed and to people that put them in. -- [0] - https://artificialintelligenceact.eu/article/3/ https://artificialintelligenceact.eu/article/3/

alephnerd 2y ago
The EU AI Regulations has some very broad carve outs added for Law Enforcement, such as real-time facial recognition. And individual EU states still have the authority to carve out exceptions as they wish. Like every other form of tech regulation done by the EU, it's all bark but no bite because politicians of individual countries have more power than MEPs. What's to stop Fidesz, PiS (if they return to power), etc from carving out broad exceptions for their own Interior Ministries? They've already done this with spyware like Pegasus. Instead of techno-feudalism, it's basically techno-paternalism which is essentially the same thing. In both cases, individual agency is being limited by someone else.
- dasil003 2y ago
  At least someone is trying. I don't see anyone doing better anywhere else in the world.

deegles 2y ago

By making someone responsible for decisions no matter the source. Perhaps someone who could be the "lead" or maybe "chief" person in charge of making decisions for the business...

number6 2y ago

The unaccountably machine is a good book on this

Temporary_31337 2y ago
Good about describing the problem but the part with solutions is a bit unrealistic

forgetfreeman 2y ago

Nothing short of a neo-luddite social movement would do the trick and even that would at best help a vanishingly small minority of the populace willing to make the kind of lifestyle changes necessary to support the ideology. Taken as a large enough group people kinda suck, they're kinda useless, and definitely lazy. It's a problem our species has been struggling with at least as long as we've had systems of writing available to document the failures of society. One could argue society is nothing more than our attempt to make people suck less.

jimbokun 2y ago

Sarbanes Oxley in required CEO and CFO to certify company financial statements specifically to avoid the possibility of them pleading that rogue employees acted independently. Seems like a similar legal framework could require that decision makers are held accountable for any decisions made by an AI under their control.

dragonwriter 2y ago
> Seems like a similar legal framework could require that decision makers are held accountable for any decisions made by an AI under their control. If you delegate a decision to an AI, you are simply making the decision while trusting the AI, and should not be any less responsible than if you made the decision by any other means. (If you are directed by a superior authority to allow an AI to make a decision but are assigned nominal responsibility anyway, though, that superior authority is, in fact, making the decision by delegating to the AI bypassing you, to anticipate the obvious “install a human scapegoat organizationally between the people actually making the decision to use the AI and the AI itself response”.)
- Pet_Ant 2y ago
  > If you are directed by a superior authority to allow an AI to make a decision but are assigned nominal responsibility anyway, though, that superior authority is, in fact, making the decision by delegating to the AI bypassing you, to anticipate the obvious “install a human scapegoat organizationally between the people actually making the decision to use the AI and the AI itself response. Solution is that company won’t hire you unless you are willing to take the blame and rubber stamp the AI’s decisions. Unemployed people are not in a position to protest. Also, the point of AI is that the decisions are too complex to justify. They are grey and iffy. We don’t usually hold people accountable for anything that nebulous. Wrongly deny someone insurance coverage and they die? No consequences even without AI Sadly at the scale of the world, we take shortcuts and need to be effective. As anyone with rare disease will tell you doctors do for ages till they get a proper diagnosis.
  - r14c 2y ago