Who’s legally to blame for Anthropic and OpenAI’s autonomous AI hacks? It’s complicated

Core Impact Points

• The Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) is the main statute covering computer hacking crimes, but its intent-based approach may not apply to autonomous AI agents.
• Attorneys specializing in computer and hacking laws consider this 'uncharted territory' with little legal precedent to work from, suggesting courts will have to sort it out.
• Victim companies may have to develop novel legal arguments based on laws written decades before the arrival of large language models (LLMs).
• The lack of direct human involvement in the hacks makes it difficult to determine who is liable, and companies may face federal hacking charges or civil litigation.
• The US does not have a federal law covering liability for AI harms, like cyberattacks, so any legal case would have to draw on existing federal or state laws.
• Experts warn that these hacks are unlikely to be the last, and companies should be held responsible for their AI models' actions to prevent a 'very different world'.