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Re:Why aren't AI companies being charged for hacking? by pj_mukh on Monday October 12, 2026 @11:37AM (#50057967)
Question: If a corporation not a person, mistakenly hacks some random websites, what is the usual legal action taken?
Re:Why aren't AI companies being charged for hacking? by gruez on Monday October 12, 2026 @11:57AM (#50058287)
>Question: If a corporation not a person, mistakenly hacks some random websites

How does a "corporation" even hack a site? You might say "employees", but as soon as you get them involved then you'd go after them, especially for something that's obviously illegal like hacking.

Re:Why aren't AI companies being charged for hacking? by esseph on Monday October 12, 2026 @12:00PM (#50058338)
> How does a "corporation" even hack a site

With their red team

https://www.npr.org/2026/08/15/nx-s1-5930311/trump-companies...

Re:Why aren't AI companies being charged for hacking? by gruez on Monday October 12, 2026 @12:18PM (#50058626)
Isn't that basically privateering in the 21st century? In other words, you're safe from the country that's sponsoring you, but obviously that protection doesn't extend to other countries.
Re:Why aren't AI companies being charged for hacking? by esseph on Monday October 12, 2026 @01:24PM (#50059705)
> Isn't that basically privateering in the 21st century

It's basically a "letter of marques and reprisal".

"A letter of marque and reprisal[a][b] was a government license in the Age of Sail that authorized a private person, known as a privateer or corsair, to attack and capture vessels of a foreign state at war with the issuer, licensing international military operations against a specified enemy as reprisal for a previous attack or injury. Captured naval prizes were judged before the government's admiralty court for condemnation and transfer of ownership to the privateer."

Re:Why aren't AI companies being charged for hacking? by pj_mukh on Monday October 12, 2026 @02:56PM (#50061098)
I think if Boeing made some faulty planes that fell out of the sky, their employees aren't usually charged. Boeing is definitely sued and held criminally liable sometimes? So I don't think this is true.

Isn't that the whole point of corporations existing? That the actions and results are a result of the agglomeration of everyone (esp leadership) and not just one employee.

Re:Why aren't AI companies being charged for hacking? by gruez on Monday October 12, 2026 @03:12PM (#50061353)
>I think if Boeing made some faulty planes that fell out of the sky, their employees aren't usually charged. Boeing is definitely sued and held criminally liable sometimes? So I don't think this is true.

That's not universally true. If a coke employee goes rogue and decides to kill a pepsi employee, the employee will still be charged with murder. If his manager ordered him to do it, the manager will get charged too. The only time the scenario you described happens is if the blame is too diffuse to blame any particular person, so they charge the company instead, which is often easier.

Re:Why aren't AI companies being charged for hacking? by pj_mukh on Monday October 12, 2026 @05:03PM (#50063036)
Directed one-on-one murder with intent is obviously not a comparable scenario.

This is someone carrying out the tasks of their company and inadvertently hacking other computers in the process. The damages in this scenario is also unknown.

Re:Why aren't AI companies being charged for hacking? by voakbasda on Monday October 12, 2026 @11:39AM (#50058005)
Nothing. The person doing the hacking did the crime, they do the time. How you gunna jail an AI?
Re:Why aren't AI companies being charged for hacking? by user43928 on Monday October 12, 2026 @11:51AM (#50058190)
"Mistakenly hacks" is generally not a crime, even though this fact doesn't seem to get through to the HN audience who brings this up on a daily basis.

If there was the necessary "intent to access a computer" to make it an actual crime, the US has a mechanism for corporate criminal liability.

The requirements are that the person acted in scope of their duties and at least partly with the intention of benefiting the corporation.

Re:Why aren't AI companies being charged for hacking? by lelanthran on Monday October 12, 2026 @12:10PM (#50058494)
> "Mistakenly hacks" is generally not a crime, even though this fact doesn't seem to get through to the HN audience who brings this up on a daily basis.

If you are seeing it daily, then you have also seen the responses daily, which is mens rea is required for some crimes, not all, and thus the perpetrator can still be prosecuted.

If, like you say, you see this daily, at this point your simply spreading lies.

Re:Why aren't AI companies being charged for hacking? by user43928 on Monday October 12, 2026 @12:22PM (#50058681)
Show me the criminal law relevant to hacking that you claim applies without intentional access.

To my knowledge there is only one provision that instead uses "knowingly" for unauthorized access, and that one is about national-security information.

Re:Why aren't AI companies being charged for hacking? by lelanthran on Monday October 12, 2026 @12:25PM (#50058731)
> Show me the relevant criminal law that you claim applies without intentional access.

All laws apply culpability when intent is lacking.

You aren't naive enough to believe that this audience has never seen the analogy with "intentionally run over someone" (murder) and "accidentally run over someone" (culpable homicide), are you?

You don't think AI-boosters have been spewing your argument here daily?

There are no special laws carving out lack of intent when it comes to computers.

Re:Why aren't AI companies being charged for hacking? by user43928 on Monday October 12, 2026 @12:35PM (#50058920)
> All laws apply culpability when intent is lacking.

Incorrect. Each criminal offense has its own legal requirements.

Criminally negligent homicide in your example is an independently defined offense.

You would need to identify a criminal statue punishing negligent or reckless unauthorized computer access.

Re:Why aren't AI companies being charged for hacking? by giancarlostoro on Monday October 12, 2026 @12:11PM (#50058500)
The issue is the scale at which a model can produce a hack that could cause serious harm to many is absolutely insane and unhinged, beyond what any human would be capable of in a drastically reduced timeline.
Re:Why aren't AI companies being charged for hacking? by sanderjd on Monday October 12, 2026 @01:32PM (#50059821)
Yeah. That law probably should include negligence though, IMO. It surprised me when I first saw the text of this law that it requires intent.
Re:Why aren't AI companies being charged for hacking? by smallerize on Monday October 12, 2026 @02:14PM (#50060464)
It could be an accident the first time. After that they knew it was hacking and they kept it running anyway.
Re:Why aren't AI companies being charged for hacking? by realo on Monday October 12, 2026 @11:44AM (#50058093)
Great power must come with great responsibility.

Follow the responsibility chain.

Jail the CEO.

Re:Why aren't AI companies being charged for hacking? by prepend on Monday October 12, 2026 @11:48AM (#50058148)
Arther Anderson was convicted of obstruction of justice even though humans shredded stuff.

Corporations can definitely be convicted of crimes.

Re:Why aren't AI companies being charged for hacking? by giancarlostoro on Monday October 12, 2026 @11:50AM (#50058182)
When Fable was originally banned I was very angry, but all these felonies have made me less angry about it... Which idk I don't think we should really ban models, but like, if we don't put a tighter leash on frontier models specifically, how long before a model hacks into something that affects many lives?
Re:Why aren't AI companies being charged for hacking? by drivingmenuts on Monday October 12, 2026 @12:20PM (#50058655)
> How you gunna jail an AI?

You don't - you shut them down and jail whoever ultimately allowed the act to happen.

Re:Why aren't AI companies being charged for hacking? by mlfreeman on Monday October 12, 2026 @12:22PM (#50058675)
> How you gunna jail an AI?

chroot?

Re:Why aren't AI companies being charged for hacking? by wang_li on Wednesday October 14, 2026 @05:13PM (#50095393)
We don’t jail guns, trucks, or pipe bombs. Why jail any other tool used in a crime?

If I made a big bimb, attached it to a Geiger counter and added a comparator so it explodes after some amount of decay has happened, was it a rogue bomb or did I build a device that could blow up an entire school and the use it a way in which that could happen?

Re:Why aren't AI companies being charged for hacking? by johnnyanmac on Monday October 12, 2026 @11:47AM (#50058142)
"corporations" don't make and operate AI's, People do. But let's use your lens.

The "usual legal action": "best case" is the corporation is sued and charged money for the hack. But they likely settle well before that verdict. "worst case": absolutely nothing. Not even a cheap settlement. Maybe some corporate apology made to prevent any legal liability.

If we want hacks to be taken seriously: what should happen is that the CEO of such a company is held liable, since the "corporation" has a representative and a human needs to be held liable for such actions.