alt Hacker NewsIf I am a company that builds agents, and I sell it to someone. Then, that someone loses money because this agent did something it wasn't supposed to: who's responsible?
Me as the person who sold it? OpenAI who I use below? Anthropic who performs some of the work too? My customer responsible themselves?
These are questions that classic contracts don't usually cover because things tend to be more deterministic with static code.
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Agreeing with the others. It's you. Like my initial house example, if I make a contract with *you* to build the house, you provide me a house. If you don't, I sue you. If it's not your fault, you sue them. But that's not my problem. I'm not going to sue the person who planted the tree, harvested the tree, sawed the tree, etc etc if the house falls down. That's on you for choosing bad suppliers.
If you chose OpenAI to be the one running your model, that's your choice not mine. If your contract with them has a clause that they pay you if they mess up, great for you. Otherwise, that's the risk you took choosing them
If I am a company that builds technical solutions, and I sell it to someone. Then, that someone loses money because the solution did something it wasn't supposed to: who's responsible?
Me as the person who sold it? The vendor of a core library I use? AWS who hosts it? Is my customer responsible themselves?
These are questions that classic contracts typically cover and the legal system is used to dealing with, because technical solutions have always had bugs and do unexpected things from time to time.
If your technical solution is inherently unreliable due to the nature of the problem it's solving (because it's an antivirus or firewall which tries its best to detect and stop malicious behavior but can't stop everything, because it's a DDoS protection service which can stop DDoS attacks up to a certain magnitude, because it's providing satellite Internet connectivity and your satellite network doesn't have perfect coverage, or because it uses a language model which by its nature can behave in unintended ways), then there will be language in the contract which clearly defines what you guarantee and what you do not guarantee.
Did you, the company who built and sold this SaaS product, offer and agree to provide the service your customers paid you for?
Did your product fail to render those services? Or do damage to the customer by operating outside of the boundaries of your agreement?
There is no difference between "Company A did not fulfill the services they agreed to fulfill" and "Company A's product did not fulfill the services they agreed to fulfill", therefore there is no difference between "Company A's product, in the category of AI agents, did not fulfill the services they agreed to fulfill."
These are absolutely questions that classic contracts cover.
AI "agents" would be treated the same as machines that do or don't perform according to promise.
Otherwise, "agents" as a class in contracts are well covered by existing law:
Classic contracts cover liability and allocation of risk in, like, literally every contract ever written?
It's you. You contracted with someone to make them a product. Maybe you can go sue your subcontractors for providing bad components if you think you've got a case, but unless your contract specifies otherwise it's your fault if you use faulty components and deliver a faulty product.
If I make roller skates and I use a bearing that results in the wheels falling off at speed and someone gets hurt, they don't sue the ball bearing manufacturer. They sue me.
Yes they do, adding "plus AI" changes nothing about contract law, OAI is not giving you idemification for crap and you cant assign liability like that anyway.
> These are questions that classic contracts don't usually cover because things tend to be more deterministic with static code.
Why? You have a delivery and you entered into some guarantees as part of the contract. Whether you use an agent, or roll a dice - you are responsible for upholding the guarantees you entered into as part of the contract. If you want to offload that guarantee, then you need to state it in the contract. Basically, what the MIT Licenses do: "No guarantees, not even fitness for purpose". Whether someone is willing to pay for something where you enter no liability for anything is an open question.