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Comment on If your agent commits a crime, who is responsible?parent

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I feel it's somewhat similar to using TurboTax or other online services to file your taxes. For those not in the US, the tax forms have a special field to fill in if the form was prepared by a paid preparer (licensed, I guess); TurboTax and other online services leave that field blank so you, as a taxpayer, are responsible for all possible mistakes that you didn't see in the forms you signed and sent.

I feel it's very similar to using an agent; the main difference is that we kind of trust that TurboTax won't hallucinate in your forms, while the agent surely will.

Even if you fill in the preparer, the IRS still holds you responsible. For interest, penalties, and potential crimes.

TurboTax has a guarantee. If they fuck up, it’s their fault and they will fix it. If Claude fucks up, Anthropic gives zero rats asses what happens to you afterward.

They won't defend you from IRS if you underpaid the tax, and "sorry I used TurboTax" is not a valid excuse.

TurboTax's guarantee has no value beyond marketing to potential TurboTax customers.

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