[ruraljuror]

I agree with your larger point, but I don't understand what you mean the LLM doesn’t do anything? LLMs do do things and they can absolutely have agency (hence all the agents being released by AI companies).

I don’t think this agency absolves companies of any responsibility.

[MattPalmer1086]

An LLM does not have agency in the sense the OP means. It has nothing to do with agents.

It refers to the human ability to make independent decisions and take responsibility for their actions. An LLM has no agency in this sense.

[ruraljuror]

If you confine agency to something only humans can have, which is “human agency,” then yes of course LLMs don’t have it. But there is a large body of philosophical work studying non-human agency, and it is from this characteristic of agency that LLM agents take their name. Hariri argues that LLMs are the first technology that are agents. I think saying that they “can’t do things” and are not agents misunderstands them and underestimates their potential.