alt Hacker NewsAccountability is really a way to address liability. So long as people can sue and companies can pay out, or individuals can go to jail, there is always going to be a question of liability; and historically the courts have not looked kindly at those who throw their hands up in the air and say “I was just following orders from a human/entity”
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>nd historically the courts have not looked
This is dependent on having a court system uncaptured by corruption. We're already seeing that large corporations in the "too big to fail" categories fall outside of government control. And in countries with bribing/lobbying legalized or ignored they have the funds to capture the courts.
Sort if like how one could be held liable for copyright infringement?
A huge component of compulsory (either by statute or de-facto as a result of adjacent statute, like mandatory insurance + requirements thereof) professional licensure is that if you follow the rules set by (some entity deputized by) government the government will in return never leave you holding the bag. The government gains partial control and the people under it's control get partial protection.
"oh I'm sorry your hospital burned down mr plantiff but the electrician was following his professional rules so his liability is capped at <small number> you'll just have to eat this one"
I would wager that a solid half if not more of the economy exists under some sort of arrangement like that.
Yes. I agree. There is a context and it makes sense within this context. But, the economy or industry is not there to produce accountability, liability, court-legibility. These are support structures, not end goals.
I said this in response to the example above, that humans are needed where accountability is a concern. This is pretty distant from the macro.
If we think of the 19th century economy... it was mostly about food, household products and suchlike. Now the economy is a lot harder to reason about and it's easy to miss the forrest for the trees... when talking about how technology will affect it.
Accountability is required to work with your payment processor, which works with visa and mastercard, that also have requirements, etc. Depending on where (of anywhere) paradigm shifts occur... we may or may not even need these functions.
That's why it's so hard to reason our way to predictions about upcoming Ai-mediated changes.