If a dog bites someone, does the dog pay the medical bills or the owner? This is why you keep your dog on a leash and get liability insurance. I feel like this is already settled case law.

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chownie 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

In the UK if your dog bites someone you are responsible, if your cat bites someone no one is responsible. Which settled case law do we follow?

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KaiserPro 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

> if your cat bites someone no one is responsible.

I had to double take there. Its because of the dangerous dogs act.

However there appears to be a nuance that if your cat is know to be a bitey little shit, and you let it out to into a situation where it might bite someone then you are responsible.

I think it gets murky if you are taking your animal into other people's property though. On your own property you have a duty of care to visitors (ie hidden man traps are not allowed, but clearly marked and cordoned off bottomless pits are)

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GuB-42 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Considering the saying that dogs have masters and cats have slaves, not only you are not responsible if your cat bites someone but your cat should also be responsible if you bite someone.

As for agents, it depends on your relationship with it. For now, most people command agents, so the dog rule should apply. But if you believe the "superintelligence" crowd, we should apply the cat rule soon.

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altruios 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

If you are out walking your cat, and the cat bites someone, you should be responsible for that... I suspect the ruling distinguishes between pets that are out in public, vs generally private. But laws don't have to make sense to be laws... we have lots of nonsense laws.

	▲	chownie 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		> If you are out walking your cat, and the cat bites someone, you should be responsible for that... I suspect the ruling distinguishes between pets that are out in public, vs generally private. The distinction is in the responsibility it's reasonable for the cat owner to take vs the dog owner. Cats are free spirits, if your cat decides to pop out the cat flap for a fight there's really not much you can do about that. The law isn't even 100% on what to do when your cat decides to go and live in another house down the road. Are those homeowners involuntary bailees or thieves? It turns out applying laws for a controlled animal (dogs) doesn't work, so the best we can do is try for half-way between a pet and property. My expectation is that AI is similar and there is no "aha, it's so easy, just do as we do for foo" as is proposed.

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otterley a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Really? You can’t be sued for, say, doctor bills incurred by your cat scratching or biting someone so badly they need stitches, when you failed to take reasonable care of the cat and knew it had a tendency to bite and scratch people?

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yomismoaqui 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

So now we have the question if coding agents are more like cats or dogs.

	▲	mcphage 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		Interview 1,000 people about: 1. Are you a cat person or a dog person? 2. How do you feel about AI agents? And then determine which answers have a higher correlation.

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hhmc 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

If I’m walking your dog and it bites someone, am I responsible or you? Does the manner in which I was controlling them matter?

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lotu 2 days ago | parent [-]

This is why we have a court system.

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hhmc 2 days ago | parent [-]

But this is counter to the claim it's (simple) settled case law

	▲	prepend 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		It’s quite settled and there is precedent that would answer who is responsible and to what amount. There’s not a situation where only the dog is responsible.

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moomin 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Imagine your dog had a dog trainer and you didn’t know the dog had been trained to bite under those circumstances. You might have a case against the trainer.

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orf 2 days ago | parent [-]

you, the dog owner, would have a case against the trainer.

you, the person being bitten, would not give two craps about some story from the dog owner about how they hired a bad dog trainer who against their wishes secretly trained them to bite people.

you have been bitten. you have a case against the owner of the dog who bit you.

	▲	moomin 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		I think you're trying to uninvent tort law here.

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cindyllm 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

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