cd /news/artificial-intelligence/directly-responsible-individuals-dri · home topics artificial-intelligence article
[ARTICLE · art-56666] src=simonwillison.net ↗ pub= topic=artificial-intelligence verified=true sentiment=· neutral

Directly Responsible Individuals (DRI)

Simon Willison argues that LLM-powered agents should never be designated as Directly Responsible Individuals (DRIs) for projects, because machines cannot take accountability for their actions. He cites IBM's 1979 training slide stating that a computer must never make a management decision.

read1 min views1 publishedJul 12, 2026

Directly Responsible Individuals (DRI) I've been thinking about this term recently in the context of LLM-powered agents and how they fit into human organizations. I don't think an agent should ever be considered the DRI for a project - that's something that feels uniquely human to me, because humans can take accountability for their actions where machines cannot.

(See also IBM's legendary 1979 training slide that states "A computer can never be held accountable, therefore a computer must never make a management decision.")

Tags: apple, management, ai, generative-ai, llms, ai-ethics, coding-agents

── more in #artificial-intelligence 4 stories · sorted by recency
── more on @simon willison 3 stories trending now
sponsored brought to you by zahid.host 4,200+ EU-deployed projects
reading about agents? ship yours in a single git push.

Run your AI side-project on zahid.host

EU-based hosting, git-push deploys, automatic HTTPS, no cold starts. Free tier with a custom domain — perfect for shipping the agent you just read about.

$git push zahid main
Live at https://your-agent.zahid.host
Get free account → Pricing
from €0/mo · no card required
LIVE [news/directly-responsible…] indexed:0 read:1min 2026-07-12 ·