Re:Why aren't AI companies being charged for hacking?
by gruez on Monday October 12, 2026 @12:08PM
(#50058449)
>They threw the book at him. He was charged and faced a maximum of 50 years in prison.
But they offered him 4 months in a plea deal? You could argue they "threw the book at him" when he tried to take this to trial, but it's misleading to claim they did so initially.
Re:Why aren't AI companies being charged for hacking?
by dccoolgai on Monday October 12, 2026 @12:50PM
(#50059155)
Ok, then offer Altman and Amodei the same deal: 4 months in prison.
Re:Why aren't AI companies being charged for hacking?
by hackeraccount on Monday October 12, 2026 @05:37PM
(#50063393)
What was done to Swartz was terrible. That said there are some really clear differences. Swartz acted like he understood that he was breaking the law. OpenAI acted like it was a mistake from the first second.
They threw the book at him. He was charged and faced a maximum of 50 years in prison.
OpenAI committed very similar crimes on a much larger scale, yet the most they will see is civil litigation.
Insiders have called it the largest theft of labor ever in history[1].
In the USA, corporations enjoy constitutional protections, the right to free speech etc, yet they are rarely if ever charged with crimes. For examples, see how the courts handle:
* large scale systematic wage theft by corporations vs petty theft by an individual,
* negligence infecting a 10k Americans with HIV by selling known-to-be-contaminated blood products (Bayer)
1. https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/09/microsoft-exec-c...