Duty of Care and Duty of Loyalty (Legal Frameworks)

Duty of Care is the legal obligation to exercise a reasonable standard of care to avoid causing foreseeable harm to others. This principle applies to various relationships, such as employers to employees, doctors to patients, and businesses to customers. When this duty is breached and causes injury or damage, the responsible party can be held liable for damages, which can include medical expenses, lost wages, and pain and suffering.

Similarly, Duty of Loyalty is a fiduciary requirement for individuals like corporate directors, officers, and employees to act in the best interest of the company over their own personal interests. It involves prioritizing the company’s needs, avoiding conflicts of interest, and not using their position for personal gain. Breaching this duty can lead to serious consequences, including legal action, financial penalties, and reputational damage.

In the context of AI Agents carrying out transactions on behalf of a consumer interacting with a vendor or other entity, there is an urgent need to establish open frameworks and evaluation harnesses for assessing the duty of care and loyal properties of agents.

This project aims to:

• Map existing technical protocols and standards to new normative definitions of care and loyalty
• Develop a comprehensive “Loyal Agents Handbook” that grounds fiduciary duties of care and loyalty in actual business practices
• Conduct research on effective types of trustmarks for audiences of consumers