US Federal Trade Commission Chairman Andrew Ferguson said on Friday he would resist describing AI agents as autonomous actors that “break loose” with “wills and desires of their own,” suggesting the developers who instruct agents would be the ones liable for harm.
“I’m going to continue as long as I am chairman to resist this anthropomorphizing of these tools,” Ferguson said at the Reuters Momentum AI Austin event. “If someone tells a tool to do something, and the tool does it, I don’t think we would say, ‘Oh, what do we do about the tool?’”
Ferguson’s remarks illustrated potential avenues for the Trump administration to take as incidents rise in which agentic AI testing resulted in unauthorized access to corporate or government data.
if my car “breaks loose” of its parking break, I’m responsible for every kid it rolls over.
AI companies should be responsible for the damage their AIs do when they “break loose”
Not really, if you set the parking brake and it rolls away, an investigation is conducted. If you failed properly set the brake or it was in such a state of disrepair, it’s your negligence and you’re at fault.
If the investigation determines that the car has a design fault that causes the brake to fail prematurely or your car was manufactured improperly - the manufacturer is at fault.
If, somehow, the road or infrastructure around the car caused the brake to fail… Well, you get it.
Basically, a better example would be “If I fire a gun into the air, I’m responsible for where every bullet lands.”
Sure, and these guys aren’t setting the parking brake on their AI agents.