Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by charcircuit 134 days ago
It turns out the lethal trifecta is not so lethal. Should a business avoid hiring employees since technically employees can steal from the cash register. The lethal trifecta is about binary security. Either the data can be taken or it can't. This may be overly cautious. It may be possible that hiring an employee has a positive expected value when when you account for the possibility of one stealing from the cash register.
2 comments
naruhodo 134 days ago
Employees are humans and therefore subject to the law. There are remedies. And you can point a camera at the cash register.

Who are you going to arrest and/or sue when you run a chat bot "at your own risk" and it shoots you in the foot?

link
charcircuit 134 days ago
If your chatbot provided you 1.5 feet worth of value before shooting your foot it may have been worth it. The optimal self damage to maximize total value may be non 0.
link
pixl97 133 days ago
>The optimal self damage to maximize total value may be non 0.

This is the calculus that large companies use all the time when committing acts that are 'most likely' illegal. While they may be fined million of dollars they at least believe they'll make 10s to 100s of millions on said action.

Now, for you as an individual things are far more risky.

You don't have a nest of heathen lawyers to keep you out of trouble.

You can't bully nation states, government entities, or even other large companies.

You individually may be held civilly or criminally liable if things go bad enough.

link
charcircuit 133 days ago
It's not that deep. Most people are not having their agents break the law for them.
link
vidarh 133 days ago
You're taking it too literally.

The point is to recognise that certain patterns has a cost in the form of risks, and that cost can be massively outsize of the benefits.

Just as the risk of giving a poorly vetted employee unfettered access to the company vault.

In the case of employees, businesses invest a tremendous amount of money in mitigating the insider risks. Nobody is saying you should take no risks with AI, but that you should be aware of how serious the risks are, and how to mitigate them or manage them in other ways.

Exactly as we do with employees.

link