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.

Directly Responsible Individuals DRI https://handbook.gitlab.com/handbook/people-group/directly-responsible-individuals/ 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 https://simonwillison.net/2025/Feb/3/a-computer-can-never-be-held-accountable/ that states "A computer can never be held accountable, therefore a computer must never make a management decision." Tags: apple https://simonwillison.net/tags/apple , management https://simonwillison.net/tags/management , ai https://simonwillison.net/tags/ai , generative-ai https://simonwillison.net/tags/generative-ai , llms https://simonwillison.net/tags/llms , ai-ethics https://simonwillison.net/tags/ai-ethics , coding-agents https://simonwillison.net/tags/coding-agents