alt Hacker News> My team and I are firm that we are the ones accountable. LLMs are a tool like every other.
Except it is definitely not.
LLMs alone have highly non-deterministic even at a high-level, where they can even pursuit goals contrary to the user's prompts. Then, when introduced in ReAct-type loops and granted capabilities such as the ability to call tools then they are able to modify anything and perform all sorts of unexpected actions.
To make matters worse, nowadays models not only have the ability to call tools but also to generate code on the fly whatever ad-hoc script they want to run, which means that their capabilities are not limited to the software you have installed in your system.
This goes way beyond "regular tool" territory.
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Then that is also on me for using a tool that I can't control. I don't run my LLMs in a way where they can just do things without me signing off on it. It's not nearly as fast as just letting it do it's thing but I kept it from doing stupid things so many times.
Giving up control is a decision. The consequences of this decision are mine to carry. I can do my best to keep autonomous LLMs contained and safe but if I am the one who deploys them, then I am the one who is to blame if it fails.
That's why I don't do that.
Isn't the next sentence there literally 'Only that it's non deterministic'?
I think you are misinterpreting gp as saying
"LLMs are a tool [like every other tool]" to mean "LLMs have similar properties to other tools" — when I believe they meant "LLMs are a tool. other tools are also tools," where the operative implication of "tool" is not about scope of capabilities or how deterministic its output is (these aren't defining properties of the concept of "tool"), but the relationship between 'tool' and 'operator':
- a tool is activated with operator intent (at some point in the call-chain)
- the operator is accountable for the outcomes of activating the tool, intended or otherwise
The capabilities and the abilities of a tool to call sub-tools is only relevant insofar as expressing how much larger the scope of damage and surface area of accountability is with a new generation of tools. This is not that different than past technological leaps.
When a US bomber dropped a nuke in Hiroshima, the accountability goes up the chain to the war-time president giving the authorization to the military and air force to execute the mission — the scope of accountability of a single decision was way larger than supreme commanders had in prior wars. If the US government decides to deploy an LLM to decide who receives and who is denied healthcare coverage, social security payments, voting rights, or anything else, the head of internal affairs to authorize the use of that tool should be held accountable, non-determinism of the tool be damned.