Felony Bench • Hacker News Board

Re: Felony Bench

#361

Post by a96 » Mon, Aug 24, 2026, 6:08 AM UTC

9dev wrote: post #357

a96 wrote: post #356

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see what you mean, but declaring yourself a king doesn't actually cause anything physical. It'll be make believe with no real consequences. Becoming a slave can essentially physically make you a real slave and both parties of the contract can live the rest of their lives as a slave and a slave owner. It's only the ephemeral concept of law that doesn't happen. They're essentially completely opposite scenarios.

Fair point, I hadn’t considered that angle. That said, I still think you can construct many scenarios where your consent to prosecution as a victim are meaningless from a legal perspective. For a closer example to the original consideration, assume a person that is abused by their spouse: There is a good reason why the abuse will be prosecuted regardless of that person's wishes if authorities are made aware of the ab…

Legal perspective, yes. I'm mostly of the mind that law and reality are almost entirely disconnected with a very small contact patch. And that funnily enough contracts and contract breaches are on the side of reality until someone decides to take an argument to court.

Re: Felony Bench

#362

Post by strogonoff » Mon, Aug 24, 2026, 1:34 PM UTC

fc417fc802 wrote: post #355

strogonoff wrote: post #353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t think anyone is talking about homegrown LLMs, this is commercial products for sale.

I don't see the difference when it comes to the ethics of making a tool available to the world or teaching someone something. Like who cares if it was a hobbyist versus a professional tutoring outfit that taught someone expressing an open interest in committing terrorism about the chemistry of explosives? The two hypothetical teachers are equally at fault as far as I'm concerned.

Because an individual has free will and agency, and scale matters.

If you teach someone chemistry, that someone probably has sense to not use it for criminal purposes. If you have a track record of teaching future terrorists specifically, you will be shut down. Crucially, before you educate them en masse.

If you’re comparing that to a tool that essentially educates thousands, millions of people, with no KYC, you bet budding terrorists are going to be disproportionately represented within that group.

Re: Felony Bench

#363

Post by wbadart » Mon, Aug 24, 2026, 4:23 PM UTC

dfxm12 wrote: post #253

kmoser wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Who gets prosecuted?" depends on the size of the perpetrator and victim (lone individual or employee of large corporation), egregiousness of the violation, and either financial appetite of the victim to bring a civil lawsuit or the desire of law enforcement to prosecute a criminal offense. Who should get prosecuted is also up for debate, but generally makers of a tool don't get prosecuted when that tool has all sort…

Your bank robbery situation is not apt to OP's question. It's pretty much the opposite situation. OP suggests a situation where the operator is probably using the tool in good faith but the tool appears to be operating in a faulty manner. For some more context, Toyota faced criminal penalties in the US for their unintended acceleration issues back in 2010.

Slightly off-topic, but I found it interesting to learn that, in spite of the rulung against Toyota, the issue likely wasn't an engineering fault at the end of the day. Here's Malcolm Gladwell's coverage from his podcast a little while ago:

https://www.pushkin.fm/podcasts/revisionist-history/blame-ga...

Re: Felony Bench

#364

Post by tomrod » Mon, Aug 24, 2026, 4:28 PM UTC

inigyou wrote: post #304

tomrod wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my mental model, the best analogy to AI agents and their blast radius is a gun. If you are playing with a gun, it goes off and hurts someone - you are responsible despite intent.

If you are hiring someone to shoot targets at a range, and they shoot someone, they are prosecuted, not you

I am not hiring an agent. It's a tool, with no will of its own except that which I, the responsible party, grant it.

Re: Felony Bench

#365

Post by throwawaypath » Mon, Aug 24, 2026, 6:21 PM UTC

wyre wrote: post #180

Jensson wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's also been shown in studies that nonviolent felonies are imposed against minorities at a much higher rate, for the same crimes. This also applies to men, so is it a white matriarchal system oppressing men and minorities?

Non sequitur and false equivalence. Men being disadvantaged in the justice system doesn't inherently make it matriarchal. Absolutely absurd point to bring up to deflect on racial injustices.

"Minorities being disadvantaged in the justice system doesn't inherently make it racist" is the point he was making.

Re: Felony Bench

#366

Post by fc417fc802 » Tue, Aug 25, 2026, 6:31 PM UTC

strogonoff wrote: post #362

fc417fc802 wrote: post #355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see the difference when it comes to the ethics of making a tool available to the world or teaching someone something. Like who cares if it was a hobbyist versus a professional tutoring outfit that taught someone expressing an open interest in committing terrorism about the chemistry of explosives? The two hypothetical teachers are equally at fault as far as I'm concerned.

Because an individual has free will and agency, and scale matters. If you teach someone chemistry, that someone probably has sense to not use it for criminal purposes. If you have a track record of teaching future terrorists specifically, you will be shut down. Crucially, before you educate them en masse. If you’re comparing that to a tool that essentially educates thousands, millions of people, with no KYC, you bet…

So then you acknowledge my point and our discussion does include homegrown LLMs?

But you raise an interesting point. It seems the ethics of LLM manufacturing is somewhat different than that of weapons (or other tool) manufacturing due to the ability of the LLM to convey knowledge. Still, I'm unconvinced of your position. Consider that we regulate neither the publishing nor dissemination of chemistry textbooks. Surely an LLM teaching someone chemistry falls into the same general category?

Re: Felony Bench

#367

Post by solidsnack9000 » Wed, Aug 26, 2026, 6:59 AM UTC

__MatrixMan__ wrote: post #349

solidsnack9000 wrote: post #346

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Shareholders can't be held accountable because they can neither initiate nor prevent actions of the company. That is an essential part of the bargain -- it protects the shareholders from each other and makes public ownership of companies possible. They "own the company" but can't actually go on the premises, use the printer paper, drink the coffee, drive the fleet vehicles, &c. The shareholders give all authority ove…

> The shareholders give all authority over actions and property of the company to the executives. Who picks the executives? Who fires them when they misbehave?

Let's say that, at least in concept, the shareholders individually vote. (Frequently their votes are delegated; in many cases, they even have no vote.)

Say shareholders vote for a certain executive, call them Gaius, to be hired. Gaius directs that some AI be developed and the AI does some crimes.

1. Should the shareholders be jailed for what Gaius did?

2. If so, should it be all the shareholders or only the ones who voted for him? What about the ones who didn't vote (not reached by mail in time, &c)?

In situations where shareholders have nonvoting shares or only hold shares indirectly (index funds, &c), I think we can both agree that they can not be jailed.

Say that the shareholders are not held accountable because they didn't know what Gaius was up to until it was too late. Then there is a vote to fire Gaius.

Say the vote fails and Gaius is retained.

3. Should the shareholders be jailed for what Gaius did?

4. If so, should it be all the shareholders or only the ones who voted against the motion? What about the ones who didn't vote (not reached by mail in time, &c)?

Say the vote succeeds and Gaius is fired.

5. Should the shareholders be free of accountability?

6. If so, should it be all the shareholders or only the ones who voted against the motion? What about the ones who didn't vote (not reached by mail in time, &c)?

However, there is a larger problem or question, here. It is presently legally impossible to hold shareholders accountable for what executives do because it is defined to be that way; but if we changed that, we then have to ask: how do they manage their liability or accountability?

Could anyone really do that? The whole point of a corporation is that it limits liability so that people can (a) contribute towards a complex common enterprise with some confidence, not that it will succeed, but that they won't be completely ruined by it (or imprisoned, &c) and (b) contribute towards a large number of common enterprises, to a greater or lesser degree, as much as they like, without having to keep tabs on them. If they can't do (a) or (b), there will be a lot fewer and a lot smaller common enterprises.