A joint and several liability framework for AI holds actors accountable for harm.

AI systems present a unique challenge in assigning liability. In contrast to typical commercial products or traditional software, AI systems can perform in ways that are not well understood by their developers, can learn and adapt after they are sold and are likely to be applied in unforeseen contexts. The ability for AI systems to interact with and learn from other AI systems is expected to expedite the emergence of unanticipated behaviors and capabilities, especially as the AI ecosystem becomes more expansive and interconnected.

Several plug-ins have already been developed that allow AI systems like ChatGPT to perform tasks through other online services (e.g. ordering food delivery, booking travel, making reservations), broadening the range of potential real-world harms that can result from their use and further complicating the assignment of liability.19 OpenAI’s GPT-4  system card references an instance of the system explicitly deceiving a human into bypassing a CAPTCHA bot-detection system using TaskRabbit, a service for soliciting freelance labor.20

When such systems make consequential decisions or perform tasks that cause harm, assigning responsibility for that harm is a complex legal challenge. Is the harmful decision the fault of the AI developer, deployer, owner, end-user, or the AI system itself?

Key among measures to better incentivize responsible AI development is a coherent liability framework that allows those who develop and deploy these systems to be held responsible for resulting harms. Such a proposal should impose a financial cost for failing to exercise necessary diligence in identifying and mitigating risks, shifting profit incentives away from reckless empowerment of poorly-understood systems toward emphasizing the safety and wellbeing of individuals, communities, and society as a whole.

To provide the necessary financial incentives for profit-driven AI developers to exercise abundant caution, we recommend the urgent adoption of a framework for liability for AI-derived harms. At a minimum, this framework should hold developers of general-purpose AI systems and AI systems likely to be deployed for critical functions21 strictly liable for resulting harms to individuals, property, communities, and society. It should also allow for joint and several liability for developers and downstream deployers when deployment of an AI system that was explicitly or implicitly authorized by the developer results in harm.