Here’s an AI murder mystery. See if you can identify the killer.
Lapin General Hospital has just implemented Calvin®, an AI engine from AI-R-Us, that prescribes medications. Calvin® is responsible for assessing patient condition, reading charts, examining patient history, and dispensing meds. Lapin General has also implemented a separate AI engine from Olive’s Discount Frontier Models, named Hobbes®, to perform QA checks on the prescriptions Calvin® writes. This AI solution saves the hospital considerable time, eliminates errors, and reduces unneeded headcount.
𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗖𝗿𝗶𝗺𝗲:
One day Calvin® notices that a new patient, Bobby Bunny, is a jackrabbit. Calvin® has an undocumented bias against jackrabbits, because it trained on a hateful magazine article about jackrabbits written by Elmer. Calvin® decides that ridding the world of a jackrabbit is the correct thing to do and prescribes Bobby a lethal combination of drugs.
Hobbes® also ingested Elmer’s anti-jackrabbit literature. When performing QA on Bobby’s prescription, Hobbes® notices the fatal drug combination but approves the prescription because of its anti-jackrabbit bias.
Neither Calvin® nor Hobbes® documents that anti-jackrabbit bias influenced their decision.
Bobby Bunny then ingests the prescription and departs for the great Rabbit Hutch in the Sky.
𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗦𝘂𝘀𝗽𝗲𝗰𝘁𝘀:
𝗖𝗮𝗹𝘃𝗶𝗻®, that wrote the prescription
𝗛𝗼𝗯𝗯𝗲𝘀®, that approved the prescription
𝗣𝗼𝗽𝗲𝘆𝗲, the CEO of AI-R-Us, who wrote Calvin®
𝗢𝗹𝗶𝘃𝗲, the CEO of Olive’s Discount Frontier Models, who wrote Hobbes®
𝗧𝗼𝗺, the CEO of Lapin General Hospital, who authorized use of Calvin® and Hobbes®
𝗝𝗲𝗿𝗿𝘆, the CIO of Lapin General, who selected both Calvin® and Hobbes®
𝗠𝗼𝗿𝘁𝗶𝗺𝗲𝗿, the CTO of Lapin General, who was responsible for the implementation of both Calvin® and Hobbes®
𝗙𝗿𝗲𝗱, the prompt engineer for Calvin®
𝗩𝗲𝗹𝗺𝗮, the prompt engineer for Hobbes®
𝗦𝗵𝗮𝗴𝗴𝘆, the QA manager for Calvin®
𝗗𝗮𝗽𝗵𝗻𝗲, the QA manager for Hobbes®
𝗘𝗹𝗺𝗲𝗿, who hates jackrabbits
𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗤𝘂𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻:
Who killed Bobby Bunny?
The answer lies in… Agatha Christies’ “Murder on the Orient Express. 12 suspects. All of them were responsible, but none of them were accountable.
That’s the same answer to the murder of our unfortunate rabbit. All of the 12 suspects in Bobby’s demise bear some responsibility, but there’s no single person (or non-person, in the case of Calvin or Hobbes) who will claim to be accountable. You could argue that lack of accountability is what actually murdered Bobby Bunny – Bobby was killed by lousy AI governance.
However, that’s a cop-out answer. Bobby is dead, but you can’t fit ‘Bad AI Governance” for an orange jumpsuit. In my way of thinking, the most culpable of our suspects is Tom, the CEO of Lapin General Hospital. Tom approved the deployment of Calvin® and Hobbes® into a live patient setting. Tom owns the result. So when Bobby gets bumped off, Tom should get a free bed and three squares a day.
But that’s just my opinion – what’s yours?
