Nobody Sues the Skeleton

One signal 📡 One subtraction ➖ One analogy 🎃

Created by Sam Rogers of Snap Synapse | Episode 17 with guest Michael Simon | Issue 74 of the weekly newsletter

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🎃 Analogy of the Week: The Loose Step

All October the spooky decorated porch gets the attention. The fog machine, the speaker playing rattling chains, the life-size skeleton that lurches forward when the doorbell rings. Then at six o'clock on the 31st, a seven-year-old in a cape climbs the steps in the blacklight, and the third one (that one that's wobbled since spring) rolls under her foot.

The automated skeleton was never going to hurt anyone. The step was always going to, and it had a date and an owner the whole time. Attorney Michael Simon made the same point about AI on this week's episode with one question: "When was the last time your car was arrested for speeding?" The law doesn't regulate automation or machines at all. It regulates the people who build, sell, own, and run them.

The fog machine & moving skeleton are for fun. The step is the liability, and fixing it costs a Saturday and a box of screws.

Nobody sues the skeleton. They sue whoever owns the step.

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📡 Signal: The law keeps finding a person

Look at where AI accountability has been landing this year, and notice who it lands on.

The Dutch data protection authority fined Uber nearly €825 million under GDPR Article 22, the rule on decisions made solely by machine, for suspending drivers automatically. That article quietly sat dormant for years. As Michael put it: "Guess what? It's back, baby." In California, since January 2026, "the AI did it on its own" isn't a legal defense. From January 2027, California lawyers are personally on the hook for verifying what AI hands them and must disclose its use to the court. And under California's new rules on automated decisions, a corporate officer signs the company's risk assessment "under penalty of perjury." A false one, Michael noted, can mean "up to four years in jail."

Back in issue 63, Michael's first visit, the chatbot laws kept their schedule while attention chased the deadlines that moved. The schedule's still holding. What's affirmed now is where it lands: not on the model, not on the vendor's terms of service, but on a name. A fine, a signature, a lawyer's duty, an officer's attestation.

The machine is never the defendant. A human somebody is always signing.

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➖ Subtraction: P(doom) in the boardroom

On the show I announced that I'm retiring P(doom) as of Halloween. Let's put it away with all the other doom-themed decorations, shall we? It doesn't belong in any room where decisions get made, because nobody can measure it, nobody can be assigned it, and nobody can put it on a calendar.

What it costs to give up is "the thrill of the big existential question," which is good for coffee shops and backyard barbecues, but not for businesses. What it frees is "the real preparation window that we need for the real things that are really on the calendar." The January 1 dates above don't move because the room was busy debating extinction.

This doesn't mean that I believe the probability of our AI-induced doom is zero (to the contrary), just that engaging in a dreadfully serious topic with a completely frivolous measure is anti-helpful. And a risk with no date and no owner isn't something anyone can manage. It's a mood, and moods don't file anything.

P(doom) has no due date. Everything that can actually get us in trouble does.

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▶️ Watch, read, or listen

The full conversation with Michael, with the transcript and every format, is at sigsub.show/episodes/ep-017.

Jump to a segment: Article 22 is back · SB 574 · the car that never gets arrested · not rogue AI, poor product · retire p(doom) · under penalty of perjury · worry about the basics

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🧭 Take It to Work

The porch and the boardroom have the same fix: find the step, write down when it matters, and put a name next to it. Michael's own subtraction says it in four words: "worry about the basics." The basics are the laws that already regulate us and our companies, now with AI inside them.

This week's takeaway, The Obligation Calendar, is that list made concrete: one row per AI obligation with a date on it, each ending in the person who owns it and the qualified person who checked it. The owner column is the part Michael liked most: "you need someone to own this. Cause this is not gonna be doable if nobody owns it." Keep in mind it's a starting place, not legal advice. Every row still needs a check, because, as Michael said, "Someone needs to be the last accountable source of ground truth." A model can list the dates, but it can't be that accountable somebody.

What AI obligation lands on your calendar by January 1, 2027, and who owns it? Send me your answer, or bring it to the show. If you can't fill in the name, that's the answer too.

Before the trick-or-treaters show up, check the steps.

Happy Halloween,

Sam Rogers Porch Step Inspector

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For some reason, this silly little 1-minute short that I made for this week's episode seems to be a hit. Enjoy it until the expiry date this Sunday, when it'll be time to put all the spooky and P(doomy) stuff away for the season. Not to fear, we'll have another issue ready for you then. https://youtube.com/shorts/bakYP2vcZUI

New here? Subscribe at sigsub.show and the next episode lands in your inbox.

You know at least one person who's losing sleep over the robots and not over the January deadline. They'd probably appreciate it if you forward this to them.

Related reading:

• The Quilt and the Minefield (063): Michael's first visit, when the chatbot laws kept their schedule while attention chased the deadlines that moved. This issue follows the schedule to whose name is on it.
• The Handoff Gap (035): AI-assisted work piling up with no owner once approved, and the subtraction was a named human at creation. The regulators have now reached the same rule.
• On Time or Ready? (052): build the verification time into the deadline instead of skipping the check. The January dates are deadlines that already include a check, and a signature.
• Every episode's takeaway: sigsub.show/takeaways.

This week's guest: Michael Simon, back from Episode 6. Law Plus Data is where he asked listeners to find him.

If there's a deliverable on your list with a January date and nobody's name next to it yet, that's the kind of work I take on at Snap Synapse, and I have some capacity through year end.