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Excuses like 'AI did it' don't exist in the eyes of the law
Thursday, July 30, 2026
It also appears that this former worst-case scenario didn’t dampen anyone’s enthusiasm for setting advanced models loose (or at least unsupervised in a test environment), which means there are sure to be more agents-gone-wild attacks in the near future.
“The first part of the OpenAI/Hugging Face drama did not produce enough effect to impress investors who start losing their excitement over the AI hype, so the second part of the story is now unfolding,” said Ilia Kolochenko, founder of application security company ImmuniWeb and a cybersecurity and data-protection lawyer.
“AI agents and LLM models tasked with security testing can, and almost certainly will, go rogue when security controls or safeguards are insufficient,” Kolochenko told The Register. “Powerful LLMs are unpredictable by design and thus virtually uncontrollable by humans. Using frontier AI models for security testing might be extremely costly from the legal viewpoint.”
Existing laws on both sides of the Atlantic likely hold the AI operator liable for any damages caused if an agent or AI system escapes its sandbox and breaches a third party. “Excuses like ‘AI did it’ do not currently exist in the eyes of the law, leaving AI vendors on the hook,” he said, adding that this also holds true for end-users.
“Even if your security testing tool is powered by a third-party AI model, your company will be fully liable if something goes wrong,” Kolochenko warned. “You may then file a lawsuit against the AI vendor that you used, but your chances of succeeding in the court of law are tiny due to countless contractual disclaimers and limitations of liability that may be enforceable against you.”
His final words of advice: “If you plan to use agentic AI for security testing, you must think twice and talk to your lawyers. Otherwise, you could start getting summonses to court on a daily basis.” Read Full Article