Comment by brookst
7 hours ago
Great, you’re the attorney at the CEO’s trial. To get a conviction, you’re going to have to show that he willfully committed this specific crime. There are no negligent or stochastic hacking laws, you have to show this specific crime was at his direction.
Do you think there is evidence of this?
> There are no negligent or stochastic hacking laws
I'm sure that Andrew Auernheimer would be pleased to hear that. [0] For accessing a publicly accessible endpoint, that was completely undefended and didn't actually require "hacking", he was convicted of "exceeding authorised access".
You _don't_ have to show intent under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, for the first count.
> knowingly accesses a computer without authorization or exceeds authorized access [1]
"Knowingly", not "intentionally", as in the other counts.
You only have to show that:
a) They trained a system to access without authorization (hacking)
b) The system that was trained exceeded authorized access
As responsibility falls to the operator with automated systems, the company becomes liable.
[0] https://techcrunch.com/2013/01/21/ipad-hack-statement-of-res...
[1] https://www.energy.gov/sites/prod/files/cioprod/documents/Co...
I'm not a lawyer but I don't think Sam Altman 'knowingly accessed' anything.
Are you sure that is applicable here?
And for the first count with 'knowingly accessed', he would need to have accessed classified national-defense or atomic-energy information, otherwise we are back to 'intentionally accessed'.
> I'm sure that Andrew Auernheimer would be pleased to hear that. [0] For accessing a publicly accessible endpoint, that was completely undefended and didn't actually require "hacking", he was convicted of "exceeding authorised access".
Frankly he got off too easy, but we haven't explicitly outlawed "being a malicious dipshit" so he got convicted on the closest available charge.
> Chat logs obtained by the prosecution do not paint the pair in a flattering light. They discussed, but apparently did not carry out, a variety of schemes to use the harvested data for nefarious purposes such as spamming, phishing, or short-selling AT&T’s stock.[1]
1000% agree though that the operators of these systems are culpable. If their agents wind up being malicious dipshits, the agents are still just programs that they are operating. At best they're negligent.
[1] https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/11/internet-troll-w...
That is not how it works, at least in a civilized country. The charges are not about agents, it is about operational responsibility and negligence in the company itself.
CEO is responsible for letting this to happen, not enforcing enough supervision, if not intentionally, then being grossly negligent. More severe if encouraging and letting this kind of agent research and operations happen at scale, while knowing that it can damage other systems and businesses.
So we make a law that the CEO is responsible for actions of any agent created or operated by anyone in their company. CEOs will get serious about AI security real quick. Honestly we need to do something. There needs to be a single wringable neck.
> There needs to be a single wringable neck.
Does there? Could be the whole c-suite/board.
I'd settle for any number of necks. Currently, when a corporation fucks something up, breaks the law, or hurts or even kills people, there aren't consequences besides a tiny token fine and a strongly worded letter telling them to not do it again or they'll get another tiny fine and letter, and their CEO might even have to sit down in front of Congress to say a few words and look sad.
Whatever is easiest to legislate and most people agree on, as long as there is at least one wringable neck.
It would seem to me that the difference between the corporate world and organized crime is that a corporation can get away with, "the responsibility is too diffuse" but the mafia at least has to go to the trouble of finding a fall guy.
Honestly yeah I bet there is and I hope to someday read about it if the government ever gets off its ass. Someone set up the “experiment”…