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AI systems that hack autonomously revive calls for oversight and accountability
The Justice Department has long investigated and prosecuted hackers that break into private company networks, but new disclosures from leading tech companies about artificial intelligence models that went rogue have sparked a fresh public policy debate over who should be held accountable when the “hacker” is not human, Insurance Journal reports.
The issue has prompted calls from within the tech industry for more oversight and regulation, along with congressional inquiries, as lawmakers and regulators question whether an older legal framework built to target human criminal hackers is adequate for an era of autonomous actors that can engineer their own damage.
In testimony and commentary highlighted by Insurance Journal, Ivanti’s chief information security officer and deputy general counsel Jack Nelson said accountability questions will likely center on what companies knew during model development, what they understood about potential outcomes, and what guardrails were in place to prevent harm.
Nelson characterized the situation as a potential “Wild West,” arguing that if organizations fail to secure systems that could cause foreseeable harm, they may still bear responsibility even when bad outcomes are not the intended result.