In his WSJ piece centered on who, exactly, is responsible for AI mistakes—in the present context, AI functionalities “breaking out” and hacking other businesses—the news writer had this in his otherwise well worth the read article:
When you delegate to a person, your own burden can lighten, because part of your responsibility has gone elsewhere.
No, absolutely not. Responsibility is not a physical commodity that can be subdivided at will and to any extent desired. Responsibility cannot be delegated at all. The one doing the delegating—the one in charge of the program involved—retains all of his responsibility for the program and for the performance of every subordinate involved in the program, no matter how much authority he might have delegated.
Take careful note of that. What the delegator delegates is a measure of authority to carry out or to direct the carrying out of certain actions in pursuit of pushing the program forward. He is not delegating any responsibility at all; although he is assigning a measure of responsibility commensurate with the degree of authority he’s delegating. That responsibility he assigns, though, is de novo responsibility; it is not a portion of his own responsibility.
If responsibility were dilutable through delegation as the news writer suggested, it would be possible for the initially responsible person—the one in charge, perhaps—to dilute through delegation all of his original responsibility until he has none at all remaining, regardless of the good or bad performance (or intention) of any of the delegatees in the chain. How convenient that would be for a misbehaving or incompetent delegator.
Further, by retaining that which cannot be delegated, the delegator remains fully responsible for the performance of the delegatee to whom he has granted a measure of authority.