"the chatbot itself apologized while its maker, xAI, remained silent" — this is nonsense. The chatbot is a product and a tool of its maker, it doesn't have agency. The output it produces is legally produced by the maker.
Journalists subconsciously (or consciously!) anthropomorphizing chatbots are helping to remove this accountability.
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@isagalaev Of course it does have agency.
The liability is a different question though.
@isagalaev I'm afraid your definitions of "agency" and "thinking" will chop too much. Like, a sizeable population of humans.
(Please don't go with "just predicting next token", or "just multiplying matrices", which also chop too much, from a bit different level.)
@dpwiz liability stems from agency. And it can't have agency as it doesn't actually think.