That's the title of one of my new papers, co-authored with multiple others, just published in Nature Machine Intelligence. The full paper is behind a paywall, sadly, but you can access a read-only version here. If anyone would like a PDF copy, just let me know via email and I will happily share one.
The core thesis of the paper is summed up in this quote:
Traditional theories of blame, reflected in many legal standards, suggest that if we are reckless or negligent with respect to bringing about a negative outcome, even if we did not intend to do so, we can still be held responsible for it. By contrast, to deserve credit for a positive outcome, we must exert some effort, or display some form of talent, or make some sacrifice to bring it about.
These differences lead to what we term a credit–blame asymmetry: the use of generative AI elevates the bar for earning credit, but standards for assigning blame remain the same.
Applied to LLMs, this asymmetry suggests that society might be justified in holding persons accountable for deliberate or careless errors in generated text if they put such text to use in ways that negatively impact others, even if they did not put much skill and effort into generating that text. But we might not think people deserve credit for text generated without much skill and effort..
The paper goes on to discuss the ramifications of this asymmetry in multiple domains, with a particular focus on responsibility for publications.
Your synoptic assessment of credit-blame is interesting. I would infer (or, surmise) generative AI can only be as 'good' as the programming underpinning it. If, as you mention, "...we might not think people deserve credit for...", then it seems to follow that allegations around student's cheating with the aid of AI tools ought to count for nothing, credit or blame, notwithstanding. Any accountability, tied to some moral standard in such matters, becomes pointless. But wait! This could lead to universal forgiveness and interminable do-overs for repeat offenders. The continuing movement towards a blameless society, in education and elsewhere, is not conducive to a fair and just society, seems to me. Justice entitles no one to a get-out-of-jail-free card.
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