Patrick J. McGovern Foundation President Billas Dhar: AI Harm to Consumers Demands More Than Legal Compliance, Yet Liability Allocation Remains Unresolved

When a company uses AI to process customer orders or provide service and something goes wrong, who is responsible? Billas Dhar, president of the Patrick J. McGovern Foundation, offered a clear answer in a Seoul interview: whether a company outsources work or introduces AI systems, its responsibility to consumers does not shift. But he immediately raised a harder question—if an AI system genuinely harms a consumer, how should liability be divided among the developer who built it, the company that deployed it, and any third parties in between?

“If a corporate AI system causes harm to a consumer, is it the person who built the AI, the company that used it, or a third party who should be held accountable? That is a very big question we must answer,” Dhar said. He became the first president of the McGovern Foundation in 2020 and previously served as a member of the UN Secretary-General’s High-Level Advisory Body on AI. The McGovern Foundation is a nonprofit headquartered in Boston, United States, managing approximately USD 1.5 billion and focused on using AI and data technology to address public problems in climate, health, and education.

Dhar’s central argument rests on a distinction: legal obligation and trust-based responsibility are different things. “Of course there are responsibilities under the law, but there is also a responsibility of trust between companies and consumers,” he said. “Companies need to consider how the risk that an AI system poses to someone is monitored, and how to respond before harm occurs.” This means his standard goes beyond compliance—not merely satisfying what the law requires, but actively monitoring AI risks to consumers before damage materializes.