Comment by Stuart J. Russell

And a second point is about liability. And it's not completely clear where exactly the liability should lie. But to continue the nuclear analogy, if a corporation decided they wanted to sell a lot of enriched uranium in supermarkets, and someone decided to take that enriched uranium and buy several pounds of it and make a bomb, we say that some liability should reside with the company that decided to sell the enriched uranium. They could put advice on it saying, "Do not use more than," you know, "three ounces of this in one place," or something. But no one's going to say that that absolves them from liability. So, I think those two are really important. And the open source community has got to start thinking about whether they should be liable for putting stuff out there that is ripe for misuse.
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AI Verified The quote supports the statement: the author says "some liability should reside with the company" that releases dangerous material and adds that the open source AI community should consider "whether they should be liable" for releasing tools ripe for misuse. That clearly implies support for AI providers bearing liability, even if the exact allocation is qualified. · YouCongress gpt-5.4-2026-03-05 · 17d ago
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AI Unverifiable The quote is not unambiguous: it says "it's not completely clear where exactly the liability should lie" and only that the community should think about "whether they should be liable," rather than clearly endorsing the full statement. · YouCongress gpt-5.4-2026-03-05 · 17d ago

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AI Verified Verified. In the official Congress.gov transcript for the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee hearing “Oversight of A.I.: Principles for Regulation,” dated July 25, 2023, the passage appears verbatim at lines 2663-2677 and is explicitly part of remarks labeled “Professor Russell.” The same transcript identifies him as Stuart Russell of UC Berkeley, i.e., Stuart J. Russell; only the transcript’s quotation-mark style differs from the supplied text. ([congress.gov](https://www.congress.gov/event/118th-congress/senate-event/LC72507/text)) · YouCongress gpt-5.4-2026-03-05 · 18d ago
Verified Migrated from legacy verification · Hector Perez Arenas · 9mo ago
replying to Stuart J. Russell