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Ask HN: Should AI agents have their own legal entities?

2 points by LRG-H 6mo ago

When an agent spends money or creates liability, who's responsible? Personal accounts are risky and manual LLCs don't really scale?

dlcarrier 6mo ago
When you hire a tax accountant or a lawyer, you are liable for everything they do in your name. Considering that hiring highly educated and highly paid humans doesn't protect you from liability, even for their mistakes, there's no way that it could be easily done with a computer program.
dmilicev2 6mo ago
AI is not sentient, therefore not liable for its actions. It would be pointless. We ought to look one step beyond the lines of code for liability. Unless the AI eventually passes the bar of sentience.
- yawpitch 6mo ago
  So all we have to do is wait for the bar to have been sufficiently lowered?
  - dmilicev2 6mo ago
    I'm not sure what the best course of action is here, but I fail to see the benefits to society if we were to set up legal entities for each AI agent at this stage. I think the responsibility should lie on the shoulders of the individual/business that deployed the AI agent. For that, I can clearly see the benefits to society.
- beardyw 6mo ago
  > Unless the AI eventually passes the bar of sentience. ... and subject to meaningful punishment. Not sure I can visualise that.
  - dmilicev2 6mo ago
    Me neither. If true artificial sentience is achieved, what does that say about us?
yawpitch 6mo ago
Why would it be a good idea - or, indeed, just an idea — to shield the promptor from the prompt’s consequences? If you think about it to any great degree what you’re asking is should Two Face’s coin should be held responsible for which face it lands on?
- LRG-H 6mo ago
  [flagged]
speakingmoistly 6mo ago
> When an agent spends money or creates liability, who's responsible? Whoever is operating it (as in, you or the entity providing you the service if you're using someone else's thing). If I operate a coffee machine accessible to others and it injures someone, I'm on the hook; the same logic applies to an agent. At the end of the day, LLMs are tools, and whoever is overseeing it is vouching for it (and paying the price if it misbehaves). > Personal accounts are risky and manual LLCs don't really scale? When it comes to personal accounts, I assume you're talking about use cases like "I use an agent in my personal capacity to do things and it made a mistake". This sounds like you're shouldering the risk and accept the potential consequences. That's just a case of "I did something risky, and found out". As for the manual LLC bit, I'm assuming you are thinking about an agent as part of a business. In that case, whoever is operating the business is on the hook. The idea that agents should be legal entities just sounds like an attempt at shifting blame away for doing risky things knowingly.

2 points by LRG-H 6mo ago

When an agent spends money or creates liability, who's responsible? Personal accounts are risky and manual LLCs don't really scale?

dlcarrier 6mo ago

When you hire a tax accountant or a lawyer, you are liable for everything they do in your name. Considering that hiring highly educated and highly paid humans doesn't protect you from liability, even for their mistakes, there's no way that it could be easily done with a computer program.

dmilicev2 6mo ago

AI is not sentient, therefore not liable for its actions. It would be pointless. We ought to look one step beyond the lines of code for liability. Unless the AI eventually passes the bar of sentience.

yawpitch 6mo ago
So all we have to do is wait for the bar to have been sufficiently lowered?
- dmilicev2 6mo ago
  I'm not sure what the best course of action is here, but I fail to see the benefits to society if we were to set up legal entities for each AI agent at this stage. I think the responsibility should lie on the shoulders of the individual/business that deployed the AI agent. For that, I can clearly see the benefits to society.
beardyw 6mo ago
> Unless the AI eventually passes the bar of sentience. ... and subject to meaningful punishment. Not sure I can visualise that.
- dmilicev2 6mo ago
  Me neither. If true artificial sentience is achieved, what does that say about us?

yawpitch 6mo ago

Why would it be a good idea - or, indeed, just an idea — to shield the promptor from the prompt’s consequences? If you think about it to any great degree what you’re asking is should Two Face’s coin should be held responsible for which face it lands on?

LRG-H 6mo ago
[flagged]

speakingmoistly 6mo ago

> When an agent spends money or creates liability, who's responsible? Whoever is operating it (as in, you or the entity providing you the service if you're using someone else's thing). If I operate a coffee machine accessible to others and it injures someone, I'm on the hook; the same logic applies to an agent. At the end of the day, LLMs are tools, and whoever is overseeing it is vouching for it (and paying the price if it misbehaves). > Personal accounts are risky and manual LLCs don't really scale? When it comes to personal accounts, I assume you're talking about use cases like "I use an agent in my personal capacity to do things and it made a mistake". This sounds like you're shouldering the risk and accept the potential consequences. That's just a case of "I did something risky, and found out". As for the manual LLC bit, I'm assuming you are thinking about an agent as part of a business. In that case, whoever is operating the business is on the hook. The idea that agents should be legal entities just sounds like an attempt at shifting blame away for doing risky things knowingly.