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Comment by ipython

12 days ago

In my opinion, identity is a useless concept if there is no associated accountability. I cannot have an identity if I cannot be held accountable for my actions. You cannot hold an agentic system accountable- at least in their current form.

Okay, but what is accountability? I would argue that accountability is a social/cultural phenomenon, not a property of the entity itself. In other words, accountability depends on how other treat it.

For example, a child can't be (legally) held accountable for signing a contract, but we still consider children as having identities. And corporations can be held accountable, even though we don't consider them as having a (personal) identity.

Maybe one day society will decide to grant AIs accountability.

  • Maybe a better term would be “consequences”.

    Children experience consequences every day. And the ultimate consequence faces us even from birth: our own mortality.

    AI is essentially free from consequence. In my opinion.