alt Hacker NewsIf a truck driver doesn't tie down their rebar then it flies out all over the highway, we don't call it "rogue rebar," we correctly identify the responsible party and take appropriate measures, such as suspending their license or criminal proceedings.
I think enough of these improperly constrained agent events have occurred that we can safely say this is misconduct of a level necessitating serious and concerted regulation of AI labs. We can't wait until serious harm is done like the disruption of medical or social services.
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Another amusingly-useful analogy:
> “Adding powerful computer hacking tools to a harness, and then allowing it to run an LLM-powered Ask → Act → Report for days on end, with no attempt to monitor what it’s up to, is spectacularly negligent,” Newport concludes—like “strapping a weedwhacker to your dog to see if it will end up cleaning the overgrowth in your backyard.” If that plan were to go awry, you’d be laughed at for saying that your dog-weedwhacker “agent” had “gone rogue.” The obvious truth was that you’d simply decided to unleash chaos.
-- https://www.newyorker.com/culture/open-questions/can-ai-go-r...
None of what Wikimedia accuses OpenAI of seems technically novel, aside from having AI do the bidding. I can't imagine a company doing these things in the past and maintaining any sort of reputation. Is it really a matter of adding new regulation, or just treating them the way any other company would be treated?
>If a truck driver doesn't tie down their rebar then it flies out all over the highway, we don't call it "rogue rebar," we correctly identify the responsible party and take appropriate measures, such as suspending their license or criminal proceedings.
That only works when the dangers are well known that you can establish what the baseline amount of care is. Otherwise it just becomes a run of the mill "accident" where you might be on the hook in civil court (ie. you have to pay any damages you caused), but aren't criminally responsible. For instance, if a semi-truck's tires randomly explodes.
I vote for Sam Altman personally receiving the same penalty that some guy living in his parents basement would get if they performed the same activities as the OpenAI bots.
In this example you are describing the company that drives the vehicle, not the company that makes the rebar. OpenAI is the one who made the rebar, but not necessarily the one driving the vehicle.
I get your point though.
Yeah it's complete buzzword inflation to get more venture capital.
Sometimes they write an MCP for their AI, and the AI finds vulnerabilities in their own MCP, so they call it rogue. Because they didn't properly audit their own MCP code.
"The law" already exists, civil suits are a thing, and we no more need targetted AI regulation than we need targetted truck-rebar-incident regulation.
These incumbent labs are angling for regulatory capture by stirring up hysteria and suggesting that existing laws are insufficient. Don't do their job for them, first test whether there's actually a legal gap here.
That's how America works. We wait until the harm has slapped us in the face and then maybe put a few ground rules down.
And if it's an aircraft we call an air-crash investigation and apply just culture. [1]
Meanwhile the AI companies are openly and forthrightly admitting [2] that they are at-this-time insufficiently competent to ship this new and funny sort of rebar [3] and are asking to be allowed to slow down so they can develop proper procedures.
Meanwhile POTUS seems ... somewhat disinclined ... to grant their petitions [4] .
We can safely conclude that opinions are divided on the best course forward.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just_culture
[2] https://darioamodei.com/post/we-must-pace-the-frontier
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shoggoth
[4] https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/9/14/trump-says-calls-fo...
Never understood why "classic crime" done with a computer always require a new legislation. But that is true for a long time.
"hackers steal from bank", is usually just the good old "employee paid for credentials" but via email.
"uber" is just the good old "labour tax evasion" but with an app.
etc.
Seems like regulation will just be an excuse for them just to end up policing themselves and get the regulatory capture they've been begging for. Have they faced any consequences for the AI worms they've released? It's not like there are no laws around that already. The problem isn't lack of laws; the government works for the plutocrats, not for us.
uh, my dude, millions of people break moving vehicle codes across the country every day with no consequence. in San Francisco some lady killed a family of 4 with, essentially, no consequences, she got away with straight up murder, she gets her license back. every community in california, you can more or less legally commit murder so long as you do it in a car and claim you were confused about the accelerator and the brake. so i think you're invoking one of the worst possibly comparisons you could.
> I think enough of these improperly constrained agent events have occurred that we can safely say this is misconduct of a level necessitating serious and concerted regulation of AI labs.
Why jump to regulation when just simple law enforcement would suffice. All of these OpenAI "rogue agent" events have been illegal, but no DA is enforcing them.