Man thats a lot of text, i asked chatgpt to summarise it for me and it told me not to worry about it
this post was submitted on 15 Jun 2026
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The basic idea that there are abiously laws for humans too is fine.
But these are misunderstood, and are designed to put blame on users instead of the AI and the companies behind.
It is well known that Asimov's laws were flawed.
What? No they aren't!! Those laws are 70 years old, and are surprisingly well designed, and the concept still stands, which is why they are still so famous! The claim that they are flawed is a very bad start, and very noticeably the author does not describe in what way they are flawed, and also no, Asimov's stories do NOT reveal flaws in these laws, on the contrary they demonstrate the necessity of them. Asimov's stories demonstrate that responsibility of AI is a requirement, otherwise innocent people or even humanity will get hurt.
The inverse laws the article suggest:
Humans must not anthropomorphise AI systems.
This is mostly irrelevant. Judgement must be based on the facts, just like with any other type of professional advice.
I feel like 2+2 should be five, is essentially nonsensical, but still it is impossible to not have human users reflect on their own emotions when being advised, whether it's a human, a book or an AI.
Humans must not blindly trust the output of AI systems.
This should seem obvious. But it completely removes the responsibility from the AI, and fails to account for the human factor that if the AI was right 9 times in a row, it is very human to think it is probably also right the 10th time, exactly as with a human advisor. You can't make it a requirement of humans to automatically be skeptical of advice put forward with sophisticated language and argumentation that seems identical to a qualified authority and expert. And then require that we make the research manually afterwards. What would the point of the AI be then? We might as well simply skip the AI step altogether by that logic. Which might actually not be such a bad idea. π
Humans must remain fully responsible and accountable for consequences arising from the use of AI systems.
This sounds like blame is fully on the user, not the company responsible for the AI.
When services are offered to non specialists and ordinary people, the company behind the "product" must have responsibility of the quality of the product for the services they offer, exactly like with other products. Guidance to a teenager to commit suicide cannot be blamed on the user, and guidance to commit acts of terror makes the AI an accomplice, and the company behind such an AI must be exactly as responsible for the act as if a human had been an accomplice.
This looks like a whitewash of AI responsibility, and this is exactly the last thing we would want to become a legal norm, a world of irresponsible AI where the users carry all the blame.
Guidelines maybe, laws no.
Edit:
I'm surprised this is downvoted, since when did Lemmy become pro irresponsible AI? Laying the burden of responsibility on ordinary users instead of the companies behind!
Absolutely "don't be stupid" is what we should all strive for, but you simply can't make it a "law" that people must stop being stupid.
I didn't downvote, as I don't do that to comments that show thoughtful effort, whether I disagree or not. And I'm certainly not in lockstep with Lemmy on AI, so I can't speak for anyone but me.
There are some places I agree, and some I don't. First, I agree that the three laws are a good idea. However, they are compressed in human language and it is unsurprisingly ambiguous as to the meaning of harm. While harm is often unambiguous, I have a feeling if you could somehow survey the world on all possible actions, no two people would completely agree on what is harmful. If we can't clearly define it for ourselves, we certainly can't choose to it or create an AI that agrees. So as nice as the idea of the three laws is, they are not feasible.
I think you are spot on about trust and AI. My computer has prompted me a thousand times for approval of some innocuous text expansion in a cli command. It has never attempted something I didn't want. I do often have to go back and change how it has done something. And I run frequent scans for alignment of documentation so that I can be sure someone looking at the acceptance criteria doesn't come away with a different idea than someone who looks at the diagrams.
But we diverge on matters of responsibility. I think it must be incumbent upon the person using the AI to understand the fundamental flaws of such systems. And I think a company that provides unreviewed AI output must ensure users are aware that output can be harmful or incorrect. Ultimately the nature of these systems can only approximately comply with lack of harm.
I think responsibility comes once you present AI output to something who doesn't consent or understand AI. (Side note: making it a requirement that a user must be 18 to be provided AI output might fix a lot of issues because for example customer service bots can't guarantee a caller is over 18.)
The ways to use AI are myriad and it's impossible to know how "come home to me" (the text which encouraged one of the suicides) is going to be taken by the user. In fact, I'd interpret that phrase as imploring the user to stay alive.
Ultimately, "no harm" can never be guaranteed because life is subjective. And no AI can be rendered harmless yet still do anything useful. That's why human judgment and skepticism is needed on the output. I am hopeful AI can be fully democratized, but critical thinking is always required, just like the time I had a high school teacher tell me blind people can see through a sort of third eye.
That doesn't obviate the AI company of any responsibility whatsoever, but I think it's fine to hold them to standards of reasonable effort to mitigate foreseeable harms.
Thanks for the good constructive response. π
a company that provides unreviewed AI output must ensure users are aware that output can be harmful or incorrect.
I agree, and then we should require such warnings for every AI response, kind of like we have on cigarettes.
Meaning the responsibility to warn about harmful effects is up to the company offering the service, not for the user to assume.
I think responsibility comes once you present AI output to something who doesnβt consent or understand AI.
Which means 99.9% of the users currently using AI, or unknowingly exposed to it through services that use AI without it being clear.
Which means 99.9% of the users currently using AI, or unknowingly exposed to it through services that use AI without it being clear.
It's tricky, you know? IMO, you can't democratize AI (which IMO we must do) if you need some sort of IQ test to be allowed to use it. A checkbox acknowledging risk acceptance is insufficient. But also, yes, you have to have some awareness of what AI even is or you are at risk of being harmed.
you have to have some awareness of what AI even is or you are at risk of being harmed.
Yes that's how it is, but that should not be the case, AI should legally be considered like asking expert advice, like asking a lawyer or a doctor, those are not considered risks, because they have legal responsibility for their advice. The same must be the case for AI, AI must have similar legal responsibility covered by the company offering the AI service.
If AI responses can't be trusted and are false information, it's not a service but a disservice. It can never be the case that normal users should have particular skills to use an AI service. That's legally a slippery slope we should absolutely refuse to allow.
AI should legally be considered like asking expert advice, like asking a lawyer or a doctor
That is impossible. AI has no consciousness or ability to reason about the answers it is giving. Without a thinking domain expert between the user and the AI, this simply cannot be done.
If AI responses can't be trusted and are false information
AI response can't be trusted. Everyone should know that. There is no possible way to design a system where AI can be trusted. Hell, you can't even design a system where a human can be trusted to be infallible.
You don't need a particular skill to use AI as a service β which isn't to say the results are going to be worth a crap if you aren't a domain expert. Anyone can ask AI to build a web service and get it approximately correct, but you need someone who knows how to build a web service to tell the AI what it needs to build it correctly.
But one does need to understand that the output from AI should only be used when the marginal cost of failure is near-zero.
you should read roger macbride Allen's caliban series
I never read any "fake" Asimov stories not actually being written by Asimov himself.
I have however read everything Asimov wrote, I think he was an amazing author, and I love how well thought out his stories are.
Is there any particular reason to read these Roger MacBride Allen stories?
I must admit my interest in reading has diminished, because I find mostly everything I read has become banal and without any new thoughts.
it's kind of a critique of the three laws of robotics. it's main point is the effect that those laws would have on the people living alongside robots governed by them. the primary issue it points out with the 3 laws is basically that if people have an abundance or free labor that is strictly bound to do everything for them and protect them from all harm then they basically become slaves to their own servants (the books use that phrasing, probably because the characters narrating don't see robotic labor as slavery). they're not the best books I've ever read but I think they make a really good point about how ai/robots should be governed and about what the difference between one of those and a person even is (or rather if there is one at all, save for the three laws), and they are decent just not the best.
Everyone who thinks of using LLMs should read this