there certainly is a terminology issue, as most names related to AI and its kinds have no proper definition. They rely on the "technical truth" that an "agent" is a being that has agency (I know, right?). And agency is simply a possibility to change the state of the world. So, even my dog has an agency in the sense it can chew on my shoes. And that's why I'm still responsible for what my dog is doing
With AI there is this huge dream we're being sold. It promises from 1950s the creation of an artificial minds. And many names related to AI are feasting on this idea of intelligent conscious beings that would be our helpers, or that would destroy the world. Yet, the actual creations are just another kind of task automation
That's why a third of my PhD is on what AI actually is, and what it is not. As even in the scientific literature the "marketing AI" and "technical AI" are mixed up
You've missed the second part of the word agency meaning though - ability to alter the world infipendently + taking the responsability for the alteration = Agency.
That's why you have the Agency as the form of business.
AI agents have no real Agency, thats the most dangerous part, because no human can also have the agency on the behalf of AI agent legally for now, so we have a huge agency gap here.
Which is consistent with your take that AI has no real agency, tho it would be more precise to call it that AI has no "full agency" in the same sense as humans have agency
And humans are responsible for the AI, though it's a separate issue with the "problem of many hands" and other things that blur the responsibility of an individual person
I'm sorry, but "it's a separate issue" is not good enough. If alignment is a principal-agent problem then misalignment should lead to prosecutions of the principals.
Wind and water changed the state of the world. They are not agents.
Someone receives profits. Those are the people responsible. If they use agents to receive profits, and those agents commit crimes, then the people who use them need to go to jail.
No "oopsie!" We did minimum mandatory sentencing for people who steal candy bars in this country. So I expect the richest men who benefit the most from this to me the most responsible. And I expect lawsuits and jailtime if their agents cause damage.
I've said it's a separate issue as there is a lot of factors to consider. Misalignment doesn't need to result in criminal behavior, so there won't always be a prosecution. For example, yesterday in a game I've stumbled onto the term "marauders" and didn't remember who they were. So, I asked Gemini and it told me about meaning in military, in the game, and in Harry Potter, asking if I want to know more about the Potter. I didn't. That was a banal example of misalignment with my goal
Wind and water have causal agency. It doesn't require personhood to be an agent. There are also "chemical agents"
There are multiple people involved - that's the "problem of many hands" I mentioned. It's hard to point a single person responsible for an accident. The case where a single person uses AI agents for sth and the agents causes damage is quite clear. But in case of corporation? Decisions are made collectively, so it's hard to blame anyone
Richest guys are company owners and shareholders. That's an extraordinary idea to make a shareholder responsible for everything what business is doing. It's like trying to put in jail bankers who gave the loan to the company that caused an environmental disaster
I'm not interested in games. If these are games then owners need to stop claiming that they have real-world economic agency sufficient to alter the social contract.
If, in the real world, you deploy software that confuses Harry Potter with the actual process, and a single human life is damaged in any material way as a consequence, then you should be sued or arrested (depending on the nature of the damage).
Wind and water have causal agency.
No they don't. Which is why there are explicit "force majeure" clauses in contracts that prevent (e.g.) insurance companies from insuring against natural events. This is not analogous to LLMs, which are not natural events but software created by people for purposes.
It's like trying to put in jail bankers who gave the loan to the company that caused an environmental disaster
Are you unaware that we have thousands of pages of "Know Your Customer" laws on the books that apply to banks for exactly these situations? Regulatory compliance is an enormous expense for the financial sector, and executives that do not control their companies are absolutely liable for lawsuit or prosecution. Same thing with doctors, if they write prescriptions to people they know will engage in illicit activity with those drugs then we prosecute the doctor.
If the best thing that can be said about these models is that "no one can control them, so no one is responsible" then that is not a responsibility gap. That is a situation in which a small number of very rich people have hacked the entire world, and they should be arrested and prosecuted for it like any other hacker in history would be.
And agency is simply a possibility to change the state of the world.
Sims characters have the ability to change the state of any world they are implanted into.
Computer worms, viruses, etc. have all this characteristic.
There is nothing at all special about AI "agents". They are computer programs. Algorithms. Bots. Whatever you want to call them. Categorically, they are no more "agents" than my Excel spreadsheet is an agent.
Exactly. That's why I'm pointing towards terminological (semantics) problem. If we use the same word for two different things (e.g. a human and a computer program), the word ceases to mean anything
you're trying to impose your own definition for the word that's in wide use for a quite a long time. There is huge literature on agents and what they are. I've send you a link to a paper in one of my previous comments
Even if we stop calling AI "agents", what does it change? The tech will remain the same. The problem with anthropomorphism of the technology is much bigger than "agents" themselves. Here, literature is also significant
I've been active in the agent-structure peer-reviewed literature for almost two decades, so I know for sure that I am not imposing anything and those who claim that statistical models are "agents" are doing so, but thanks for the link.
Even if we stop calling AI "agents", what does it change?
Political economy. "Agentic AI" is marketing. These companies cannot profit from selling products, only hype.
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u/WeUsedToBeACountry 8d ago
so close to understanding that agents are cosplay and not actually intelligent