1. While a crime, hacking isn't going to be charged unless the entity being hacked wants there to be charges, as a conviction will heavily depend on participation by that entity.

2. Due to (1), hacking is almost always only charged against people without deep pockets, as why would you demand the FBI go after Anthropic when they will just pay you a stack of cash, tax free, today, to forgive them.

The arguments here around intent are (potentially) irrelevant. Case law is clear that setting up a situation which foreseeably highly likely to produce an outcome (gross negligence) is (more or less and it's not quite this simple and varies by offense) equivalent to intent. In fact, automating something is often treated more harshly under the law than just doing it yourself.

United States v. Morris (1991)

Robert Morris released a self-propagating computer worm that caused widespread disruption. The Second Circuit upheld his conviction under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act even though the government hadn't proven that he intended the resulting damage.

People v. Ceballos (1974)

Ceballos rigged a rifle booby trap to fire if someone opened his garage door. The California Supreme Court reviewed the principle that someone who installs a dangerous mechanical device may be held responsible for its consequences as though they had personally inflicted the injury. Ceballos was convicted of assault with a deadly weapon, and the California Supreme Court unanimously upheld his conviction in 1974.

Something notable is that if Ceballos had fired the rifle himself, it is unlikely he could would have been prosecuted (due to self defense and the castle doctrine).

As a prosecutor I would argue that setting AI agents loose without sufficient safeguards is gross negligence and/or willful blindness as they are well known to escape.

> As a prosecutor I would argue that setting AI agents loose without sufficient safeguards is gross negligence and/or willful blindness as they are well known to escape

INAL but feel this is the approach that will be tested. It requires a defensive position which I imagine would be specific prompts or instructions to the LLM about what behavior is disallowed. If you tell it, or try to cover your basis wrt following the law, and it still does hacking behavior it’s now a question of whether you’re prompt was sufficient but you at least can say you were trying to guide it on a legal path. I think this defense would be sufficient at this point in time and probably for a few years at least.

>Robert Morris released a self-propagating computer worm that caused widespread disruption. The Second Circuit upheld his conviction under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act even though the government hadn't proven that he intended the resulting damage.

Releasing the worm was already illegal, which is all you the intent you need. Same if you shot someone as a "warning" or as a "prank" but it turned out it killed them.