Hacker News Reader

kaycey2022

Everybody should line up behind this. AI agents are not sentient. We need to stop even considering them like that. The buck must absolutely stop with the humans who operate or provisioned the bot. The more we waffle around this topic the more likely someone, or a lot of people, will get hurt.

The moment you fix responsibility with the humans 99% of the BS companies are trying to pull will stop.

View on HN

Whether they are sentient isn't even relevant. I agree with you that they aren't, but sentience is the wrong thing to focus on. It's also the sort of hairy, sensational question that will easily lead people down rabbit holes (and unfortunately that includes journalists).

Children are sentient, but we still hold their parents accountable. Adults are sentient, but in some coercive situations we hold the party in power accountable. The fact that they are sentient is not determinative.

What matters is that we have _no accountability mechanism_ for them. There is no effective way to hold AIs accountable, therefore we must hold their operators accountable, full stop.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com