The title should strike the word "agents" from the title. If OpenAI hacked someone, who cares if it was an agent or a human actor. They're accountable for what their software does.
At the very least this amounts to culpable negligence. (In the sense that their lack of precautions here has clearly exposed other organizations to risk of harm. I can't speak for the legal sense.)
So if I set up a company and accidentally hack random organizations that's OK? But if I do it as an individual user that's not? If they directed anyone or anything to "hack" and that was the outcome that they could not control within the confines of their sandbox then they are responsible for all damages and computer crimes.
I mean, why is OpenAI allowed to continue running public infrastructure? Maybe someone should sue their upstream providers for aiding and abetting felons with massive Internet interconnects.
There’s several billion difference I can think of between you as an individual, and an organisation courting the Australian government with proposed billions of dollars of investment building data centres.
This is a failure of journalism. Who hacked into the Australian Medicare system? The fact that they used OpenAI agents is peripheral to the main story.
“Remington guns caused a mass shooting at an East Farmington high school” sounds more glaring, and is essentially the same headline.
Some more discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49822556
The title should strike the word "agents" from the title. If OpenAI hacked someone, who cares if it was an agent or a human actor. They're accountable for what their software does.
At the very least this amounts to culpable negligence. (In the sense that their lack of precautions here has clearly exposed other organizations to risk of harm. I can't speak for the legal sense.)
So if I set up a company and accidentally hack random organizations that's OK? But if I do it as an individual user that's not? If they directed anyone or anything to "hack" and that was the outcome that they could not control within the confines of their sandbox then they are responsible for all damages and computer crimes.
I mean, why is OpenAI allowed to continue running public infrastructure? Maybe someone should sue their upstream providers for aiding and abetting felons with massive Internet interconnects.
There’s several billion difference I can think of between you as an individual, and an organisation courting the Australian government with proposed billions of dollars of investment building data centres.
Only two weeks ago an individual was in court, in Australia, for scraping an Australian states court website, using OpenAI. https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-09-10/christopher-duff-to-s...
Ahhh, yes - now we live in the fantasy world that it's OK if you have money to spend. Everyone else is just collateral damage.
We're in agreement that they were in the wrong and should face consequences for their actions.
Note that I said "at the very least", not "at most".
> They're accountable for what their software does.
Sure, but doesn’t it depend on the circumstances?
Yay team incarcerate Altman :)
Neither OpenAI nor agents can break into anything. Humans behind can.
It's like saying "a gun has shot a victim" deliberately putting a real criminal outside of public attention.
In a large portion of the civilised world, there’s strict gun controls, creating a high level of safe guards preventing miss-use.
Also seems as this is an billion dollar organisation, the prime minister had “frank” words while an individual faces jail time for using open AI for web scraping https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-09-10/christopher-duff-to-s...
This is a failure of journalism. Who hacked into the Australian Medicare system? The fact that they used OpenAI agents is peripheral to the main story.
“Remington guns caused a mass shooting at an East Farmington high school” sounds more glaring, and is essentially the same headline.