Yeah this is sensible. But I'm still hopeful that work like Deepmind's recent research or Clymer et al's recent work can help us create duties for a fault-based system that can actually not lead to a de-facto zero liability regime. Worth remembering that the standard of proof will not be perfection: So long as a judge is more convinced than not, liability would be established.
Good point re complying everywhere, but I think the UK example shows that countries are keen to have the AI companies' offices in their jurisdictions, and are clearly worried that having some liability regimes would discourage that.
I don't think we connect that part and the previous one well-enough. But anyway, it's very hard to convince anyone that strict liability ought to be the regime in place unless you can demonstrate that the risk is super high, and can be very consequential. I can't see how your alternative works because, well, I haven't seen any other scenario so far where strict liability has been applied on that rationale. They can pass risk to customers via higher charges but won't the charges have to be unusually high to mitigate against possible bankruptcy?
Yes yes-I think the point we wanted to put across is what you say when you say "to credit the argument". Strict liability here would be "unreasonably unfair" insofar as it doesn't consider circumstances before imposing liability. I think it's fine for a legal regime to be "unfair" to a party (for the reasons you've outlined) where there's some kind of good-enough rationale. Fault-based liability would require the consideration of circumstances first.
This is a fair point, but we're thinking about a scenario where such consensus takes a much much longer time to emerge. There's no real reason to be sure that a super advanced model a couple of years from now will do the kinds of things that would produce a consensus.
Thanks. Might be more useful if you explain why the arguments weren't persuasive to you. Our interest is in a system of liability that can meet AI safety goals and at the same time have a good chance of success in the real world. Anyway, even if we start from your premise, it doesn't mean strict liability would work better than a fault-based liability system (as we demonstrated in Argument 1).
Thanks Ian. Yes, fair point. Assuming this suggests that a comparison with nuclear power makes sense, I would say: partially. I think there's a need to justify why that's the comparative feature that matters most given that there are other features (for example, potential benefits to humanity at large) that might lead us to conclude that the two aren't necessarily comparable.
Yeah this is sensible. But I'm still hopeful that work like Deepmind's recent research or Clymer et al's recent work can help us create duties for a fault-based system that can actually not lead to a de-facto zero liability regime. Worth remembering that the standard of proof will not be perfection: So long as a judge is more convinced than not, liability would be established.
Thanks, really interesting.
Yes yes-I think the point we wanted to put across is what you say when you say "to credit the argument". Strict liability here would be "unreasonably unfair" insofar as it doesn't consider circumstances before imposing liability. I think it's fine for a legal regime to be "unfair" to a party (for the reasons you've outlined) where there's some kind of good-enough rationale. Fault-based liability would require the consideration of circumstances first.
Really good point! Also just realised that what you're saying is already playing out in cybersecurity incident reporting in many countries.
This is super interesting. Please give me a couple of days to think through it and then comment again.
This is a fair point, but we're thinking about a scenario where such consensus takes a much much longer time to emerge. There's no real reason to be sure that a super advanced model a couple of years from now will do the kinds of things that would produce a consensus.
Thanks. Might be more useful if you explain why the arguments weren't persuasive to you. Our interest is in a system of liability that can meet AI safety goals and at the same time have a good chance of success in the real world. Anyway, even if we start from your premise, it doesn't mean strict liability would work better than a fault-based liability system (as we demonstrated in Argument 1).
Thanks Ian. Yes, fair point. Assuming this suggests that a comparison with nuclear power makes sense, I would say: partially. I think there's a need to justify why that's the comparative feature that matters most given that there are other features (for example, potential benefits to humanity at large) that might lead us to conclude that the two aren't necessarily comparable.