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Comment by johannesrexx | Hacker News Reader

If you're using a car to commit a crime we blame the driver not the car.

When there's a gun shooting we don't blame the gun we blame the user.

People commit crimes. They might use a computer, a baseball bat or a hammer. We don't hold the computer, baseball bat or hammer responsible.

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An even better analogy is if my dog attacks someone I am still liable. We have a clear standard: If your property commits a crime you are responsible even if your property thinks and acts independently.

Property cannot commit crimes. Only people can.

While this may be correct with the meaning of words in law, I think it is not unreasonable for a non-lawyer like myself to phrase "Alice's dog bit the postman" as "Alice's property, her dog, committed the act which was the crime of biting the postman; as it was her property, Alice is held responsible for the offence".

I am also not a normal person, obviously normal people don't write that way, I hope I'm being precise in the right way and not introducing yet another layer of "legal jargon is both precise and not that".

Biting the postman isn't the crime, though. The underlying crime in this example would be gross negligence or recklessness for failing to control their dog.

*nods*

Hence me drawing a distinction between the legal meaning of words and the common meaning.

So, given that I'm not a lawyer and pattern-matching from what you've said, I do not know if would I be correct to answer "If your agent does something that would have been a crime if you'd done it, who is responsible?" (which is not the headline question, and changed due to the reasons you gave) with "In this case, you would be grossly negligent or reckless for failing to control your AI"?

Yes, I think that would be a better way to frame the question. :-)

But if the car explodes or gun misfires, we blame the manufacturer. The answer requires context.

If I remember my torts course in law school correctly, defective product liability law usually only kicks in when someone is physically injured by the product.

Property damage doesn't count?

It might be that the cases we read all involved someone getting personally injured. There's nothing about the law that limits the "injury" to personal injury, though--for example, if a defective battery catches fire and burns your house down, the manufacturer and everyone in the distribution chain are on the hook.

(IAAL, not legal advice)

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