An even better analogy is if my dog attacks someone I am still liable. We have a clear standard: If your property commits a crime you are responsible even if your property thinks and acts independently.

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otterley a day ago | parent [-]

Property cannot commit crimes. Only people can.

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ben_w 3 hours ago | parent [-]

While this may be correct with the meaning of words in law, I think it is not unreasonable for a non-lawyer like myself to phrase "Alice's dog bit the postman" as "Alice's property, her dog, committed the act which was the crime of biting the postman; as it was her property, Alice is held responsible for the offence".

I am also not a normal person, obviously normal people don't write that way, I hope I'm being precise in the right way and not introducing yet another layer of "legal jargon is both precise and not that".

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otterley 2 hours ago | parent [-]

Biting the postman isn't the crime, though. The underlying crime in this example would be gross negligence or recklessness for failing to control their dog.

	▲	ben_w an hour ago \| parent [-]
		nods Hence me drawing a distinction between the legal meaning of words and the common meaning. So, given that I'm not a lawyer and pattern-matching from what you've said, I do not know if would I be correct to answer "If your agent does something that would have been a crime if you'd done it, who is responsible?" (which is not the headline question, and changed due to the reasons you gave) with "In this case, you would be grossly negligent or reckless for failing to control your AI"?