Comment by bastawhiz

Devil's advocate: if I tell my therapist or my lawyer that I'm going to murder someone, they're obligated to report it. If I use my AI as a therapist or lawyer, why should the company that provides that service not be held to the same standard?

LLMs aren't email or file storage. AI labs aren't just shuttling bytes around, they're interpreting those bytes and taking action based on them. These models _already_ react viscerally in response to users saying disturbing things: the only practical difference is the ability (or obligation) for the model to escalate that concern. I'm not sure the ethics we hold AI companies to should be different than if a human being was typing out the responses.

Privacy is obviously hugely important, but this isn't the government surveiling every message. It's companies having an obligation to flag real, credible threats according to the law, which is a very different problem space.