When AI makes a mistake in your business, who's to blame?

Something goes wrong, AI was involved, and the headline blames the AI. I get why. I just think it sends owners looking in the wrong place.

We've been here before. In 1954, the U.S. Senate held hearings on whether comic books were turning kids into delinquents. In the 1980s, Dungeons & Dragons got accused of pulling teenagers into the occult. In 1993, Congress held hearings on violent video games. Looking back, those new things took heat that really belonged to people. Now AI gets its turn.

The companies building AI still have to answer for their mistakes. If a vendor ignores a real warning or ships something it knows is broken, hold it to account.

Blaming the tool itself doesn't get you far, though. Air Canada tried it. The airline's website chatbot gave a customer wrong information about bereavement fares, and in a 2024 case Air Canada argued it couldn't be held liable for what its chatbot said. A British Columbia tribunal said that amounted to treating the chatbot as its own legal entity, didn't buy it, and held the airline liable.

Here's how I think about it. Picture a company truck in a wreck. The first questions are who was driving and whether anyone kept up the brakes. The manufacturer only comes into it if the truck was defective. And nobody tells you to get rid of the trucks.

AI in your business works the same way. Someone's driving: whoever decided to let it write the email, answer the chat, or draft the quote. Someone keeps up the brakes: whoever reads what it wrote and checks what any chatbot has been telling customers. And if the tool itself is broken, you've got a vendor to call.

I know, one more thing on a full plate. It's mostly a habit. Read it before a customer does, and if you run a chatbot, look at its conversations once a week. On a small team the driver and the mechanic can be the same person. I'd just put a name on it.

Full disclosure, I help small businesses around Portland put AI to work, so I'm not neutral. I'd still say the same thing about AI that I'd say about the truck: keep it running, and know whose name is on the keys.

Is there a spot in your shop where AI is doing the work and nobody's checked the brakes in a while? Happy to be a resource if you want a second set of eyes.