The Industry

Who’s Responsible When A.I. Commits a Crime?

The justice system is in dire need of a software update.

Photo illustration by Slate. Photos by Getty Images Plus.

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In July, OpenAI agents hacked the software firm Hugging Face. Later this summer, the Australian government discovered that OpenAI’s bots had “ infiltrated ” its healthcare portal. Soon, a pattern emerged: OpenAI agents had reportedly tried to hack into multiple public and private institutions, including the U.S. Department of Education. Somewhere in this chain of revelations, a persistent question began bouncing around the internet: Aren’t these … crimes?

As Paul Ohm, a law professor at Georgetown University, observed in testimony to the U.S.…