Comment Re:Ax problem (Score 3, Insightful) 9
People have been driven to delusion and suicide because of interactions with LLMs, and although you might be able to argue that they would have killed themselves regardless and were in need of treatment, no one can possibly know that, because that's not what actually took place.
But I think the more serious question is the framing of the premise: why is it that the point at which we ought to hold people accountable is if someone is killed? Who decided that the tipping point is when these AI agents start killing people, and why? Not only do most legal systems seek to prevent and punish abusive, antisocial, and outright criminal activity, a just society has a moral and ethical responsibility to apply rules and norms fairly. While we can see that the fair application of the law largely remains an idealistic fantasy and that those with wealth and status often escape accountability, the fact remains that adding AI to that privileged status certainly is not doing anything to help reduce that inequity.
So again I ask: why should agentic AI and their operators be permitted to do things that we would not allow under other circumstances? Just because some people find these tools useful does not excuse the requirement that they be safe and respectful.
