Directly Responsible Individuals (DRI)
Simon Willison Simon Willison
The article examines the concept of Directly Responsible Individuals (DRI), a management practice originating at Apple that designates one person as ultimately accountable for a project's success or failure. The author argues that AI agents should never serve as DRIs because machines cannot take accountability for their actions, citing IBM's 1979 principle that computers cannot be held responsible and therefore should not make management decisions. This distinction means human oversight and accountability must remain central to organizational decision-making even as AI systems become more capable.
Why it matters
Directly Responsible Individuals (DRI) I went looking for a definition of "Directly Responsible Individuals" and the best I found was in the GitLab handbook. Apparently the term originated at Apple, where it's used to describe the person who is "ultimately accountable for the success or failure of a specific project, initiative, or activity". I've been thinking about this term recently in the context of LLM-powered agents and how they fit into human organizations. I don't think an agent should ever be considered the DRI for a project - that's something that feels uniquely human to me, because humans can take accountability for their actions where machines cannot. (See also IBM's legendary 1979 training slide that states "A computer can never be held accountable, therefore a computer must never make a management decision.") Tags: apple, management, ai, gitlab, generative-ai, llms, ai-ethics, coding-agents
