Accountability
“Accountability” – A cartoon illustrating how cloning and advanced algorithms are creating a legal grey zone for responsibility.
Chinese scientists recently cloned the world’s first yak (a 74‑pound calf) born via C‑section in Tibet using somatic‑cell cloning, but earlier efforts often produced animals with severe birth defects, raising urgent legal and ethical concerns. Meanwhile, OpenAI’s ChatGPT Agent autonomously researches, codes, generates files, and acts on private data. This brings us closer to a future where cloned AI agents or robotic animals run businesses, investments or supply chains without clear human oversight or liability.
To address this, platforms like Amazon‘s Bedrock AgentCore now offer built‑in observability and governance tools, monitoring agent behavior, controlling permissions, and enabling audit trails, as do startups (eg. SUPERWISE) offering AI agent observability frameworks to ensure transparency and control
New regulations like the EU’s AI Act and voluntary Codes of Practice introduce legal guardrails, mandatory risk assessments, and enforcement mechanisms.
Yet, as far back as 2010, former SEC Chair Mary Schapiro warned after the Flash Crash: “Automated trading systems will follow their coded logic regardless of outcome, while human involvement likely would have prevented these orders from executing at absurd prices.”
