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Is Google responsible if someone searches for a way to kill themselves, finds the means, and does it? What about the ISP, that actually transferred the bits?

Is Google responsible if someone searches for a way to kill themselves, finds the means, and does it? What about the ISP, that actually transferred the bits? What about the forum, that didn't take down the post?

broker354690 1y ago
OpenAI's ChatGPT is not an intermediary. Google finds you speech that was produced by someone else. ISPs ferry the speech to your modem. Forums aggregate speech from actual humans who produced that speech and enable you to access that speech. The group of human beings known as OpenAI is directly responsible for generating the speech that was sent to this child, and they intentionally did business with this child. They did not conduct speech from one entity to another- they produced the speech themselves.
hiddencost 1y ago
Google is actually quite good at this. They've very aggressively pursued protections around self harm. Google probably would not be held liable because they could extensively document that they put forth all reasonable effort to prevent this. My understanding is that OpenAI's protections are weaker. I'm guessing that will change now.
wolvesechoes 1y ago
Driver that shipped alcohol to the store is not responsible for the fact that clerk sold it to some kid. Clerk still is.
Towaway69 1y ago
What if Google is responsible? What if the tech industry, instead of just “interrupting” various industries, would also take the responsibilities of this interruptions. After all, if I asked my doctor for methods of killing myself, that doctor would most certainly have a moral if not legal responsibility. But if that doctor is a machine with software then there isn't the same responsibility? Why?
- VirusNewbie 1y ago
  Then libraries are responsible when a book inspires bad behavior or teaches someone to do harm.
- Levitz 1y ago
  Because it is a machine and has no agency. Same as why if you ask someone to stab you and they do they are liable for it, but if you do it yourself you don't get to blame the knife manufacturer.
  - lewiscollard 1y ago
    At every step there is human agency involved. People came up with the idea, people wrote the code, people deployed the code, people saw the consequences and were like "this is fine". This is why people hate us. It's like Schrodinger's Code: we don't want responsibility for the code we write, except we very much do want to make a pile of money from it as if we were responsible for it, and which of those you get depends on whether the observer is one who notices that code has bad consequences or whether it's our bank account. This is more like building an autonomous vehicle "MEGA MASHERBOT 5000" with a dozen twenty-feet-wide spinning razor-sharp blades weighing fifty tons each, setting it down a city street, watching it obliterate people into bloody chunks and houses into rubble and being like "well, nobody could have seen that coming" - two seconds before we go collect piles of notes from the smashed ATMs.
  - _Algernon_ 1y ago
    >[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. Neil Postman, Technopoly Entities shouldn't be able to outsource liability for their decisions or actions — including the action of releasing stochastic parrots on society at large — on computers. We have precedent that occupations which make important decisions that put lives at risk (doctors, ATC, engineers for example) can be held accountable for the consequences of their actions if it is the result of negligence. Maybe it's time to see include computer engineers in that group. They've been allowed to move fast and break things for way too long.

broker354690 1y ago

OpenAI's ChatGPT is not an intermediary. Google finds you speech that was produced by someone else. ISPs ferry the speech to your modem. Forums aggregate speech from actual humans who produced that speech and enable you to access that speech. The group of human beings known as OpenAI is directly responsible for generating the speech that was sent to this child, and they intentionally did business with this child. They did not conduct speech from one entity to another- they produced the speech themselves.

hiddencost 1y ago

Google is actually quite good at this. They've very aggressively pursued protections around self harm. Google probably would not be held liable because they could extensively document that they put forth all reasonable effort to prevent this. My understanding is that OpenAI's protections are weaker. I'm guessing that will change now.

wolvesechoes 1y ago

Driver that shipped alcohol to the store is not responsible for the fact that clerk sold it to some kid. Clerk still is.

Towaway69 1y ago

What if Google is responsible? What if the tech industry, instead of just “interrupting” various industries, would also take the responsibilities of this interruptions. After all, if I asked my doctor for methods of killing myself, that doctor would most certainly have a moral if not legal responsibility. But if that doctor is a machine with software then there isn't the same responsibility? Why?

VirusNewbie 1y ago
Then libraries are responsible when a book inspires bad behavior or teaches someone to do harm.
Levitz 1y ago
Because it is a machine and has no agency. Same as why if you ask someone to stab you and they do they are liable for it, but if you do it yourself you don't get to blame the knife manufacturer.
- lewiscollard 1y ago
  At every step there is human agency involved. People came up with the idea, people wrote the code, people deployed the code, people saw the consequences and were like "this is fine". This is why people hate us. It's like Schrodinger's Code: we don't want responsibility for the code we write, except we very much do want to make a pile of money from it as if we were responsible for it, and which of those you get depends on whether the observer is one who notices that code has bad consequences or whether it's our bank account. This is more like building an autonomous vehicle "MEGA MASHERBOT 5000" with a dozen twenty-feet-wide spinning razor-sharp blades weighing fifty tons each, setting it down a city street, watching it obliterate people into bloody chunks and houses into rubble and being like "well, nobody could have seen that coming" - two seconds before we go collect piles of notes from the smashed ATMs.
- _Algernon_ 1y ago
  >[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. Neil Postman, Technopoly Entities shouldn't be able to outsource liability for their decisions or actions — including the action of releasing stochastic parrots on society at large — on computers. We have precedent that occupations which make important decisions that put lives at risk (doctors, ATC, engineers for example) can be held accountable for the consequences of their actions if it is the result of negligence. Maybe it's time to see include computer engineers in that group. They've been allowed to move fast and break things for way too long.