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AI agents aren’t legally responsible for any harm that they cause, experts say. So who is?
(www.theguardian.com)
this post was submitted on 13 Aug 2026
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"The law is clear, says Prof Jeannie Paterson. “If I deploy an AI agent and it causes harm to someone else, I am responsible for that harm."
In case you were wondering if it wasn't the bleeding obvious.
A human did this a human should be held responsible. "If you throw a ball in the air are you not responsible for where it lands"
Let's say that ball is a hand grenade. Who gave it to you? It can't be JUST the user if it's that dangerous. Finally parents are being held to account if a kid uses a firearm inappropriately. The same should apply to companies who build AI, if it's used to hack someone or make CSAM.
Only if they host the model, if it's a self hosted open source model, the entity hosting the model should be held accountable
Also to keep your analogy going, if I tell you how to make a grenade. You then go out to buy supplies, make the grenade and blow up your neighbour, should I be held accountable for sharing knowledgea? Because I'm yet to hear about anyone getting into trouble for distributing the anarchist's cookbook
First paragraph: agreed.
Second paragraph: that's a good question and I really don't know how to answer that. I guess it would depend on whether or not you knew what I planned to do with it. Because there are laws about that. Do I plan to set it off in my empty field? Or do you know for sure it's going through a neighbors window? Because if you knew, then told me then you would be in trouble, for accessory at least.
The difference is that a hand grenade is illegal to own. A series of matrix multiplications is not.
A better comparison is a knife. If you throw that in the air and it lands on someone you are responsible, the person who sold you a potentially dangerous but legal tool is not.
Edit illegal, not legal. silly mistake
Where do you live that hand grenades are legal to own?
Was supposed to say illegal, the argument didnt work with saying legal.
Ok, but if time and time again, it proves that this does more harm than good, much like firearms, shouldn't the person/company that made it be held to account as well as the operator? I'm not saying that it IS the case, but it should be.