Want AI Agents to Stop Going Rogue? Make Executives Personally Liable.

“If such an animal escapes and does damage, the owner is liable simply on proof that he kept it,” so wrote Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. in his 19th-century legal treatise “The Common Law.” Holmes cites the ancient principle that simply keeping “a tiger or bear or other animal of a species commonly known to be ferocious” can make a person individually responsible for the harm it causes regardless of care or negligence.

In other words, the owner of such an animal might build a strong cage, inspect it every day and take every reasonable precaution, but if the animal escapes and causes injury, damage or death, the owner is still liable. In legal terms, this is referred to as “strict liability.”

As society considers how to prevent rogue AI agents from shutting down power grids or triggering war, this idea could make the real difference.

Read the full The Hill article. 
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Bruce Buchanan is C.W. Nichols Professor of Business Ethics and Professor of Marketing at NYU Stern. Hans Taparia is Clinical Associate Professor of Business and Society at NYU Stern.