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https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/aug/13/ai-agents-arent-legally-responsible-for-any-harm-that-they-cause-experts-say-so-who-is>
"The law is clear, says Prof Jeannie Paterson. “If I deploy an AI agent and it
causes harm to someone else, I am responsible for that harm.
“Even if I didn’t intend for that to happen, it was foreseeable, and I should
be taking responsibility.”
However, the director of the University of Melbourne’s Centre for AI and
Digital Ethics acknowledges there is also a good deal of scope for legal and
ethical “murkiness” around actions perpetrated by automated agents, after
Australia’s first known agentic AI “accident”.
An agent is an autonomous software system that, tasked with pursuing a goal,
can do it without human oversight – every step of the way.
This week the ABC reported on the case of Andrew, an AI expert who went only by
his first name, who asked his agentic program to book some gym classes for him.
After being informed he was fourth on a waitlist for a class, Andrew asked the
agent if it was possible to move him up the list.
To his shock, his agent hacked his gym’s software system and booted another
member off a waitlist so he could get into a class sooner.
“It could book classes months outside the intended booking window, before they
were supposed to be available,” Andrew wrote in a blog post in April.
“Worse, it could cancel other members’ reservations and bump them off the
waitlist.”
The agent was being helpful, he wrote, but his experience showed that if you
gave an AI permission to do something for you, it would “often discover paths
you did not explicitly ask it to look for”.
Andrew asked the agent to undo its cancellation of the other person’s
reservation, but it was unable to do so.
“Sorry about that – I should have been more careful with the test,” the AI
agent responded.
He then tasked the AI with writing an email to the gym’s software provider
about the software vulnerability it had exploited.
A spokesperson for Victoria police said Andrew’s matter “does not appear to
involve any criminality”. However, experts say there will be more dramatic
cases that may cause harm – and break the law."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
