It names no new crime — the old hacking law still needs human intent

Neither the press release nor the October 13 memo that created the task force names a new offense or a specific statute — and Attorney General Todd Blanche has said he will not investigate or prosecute AI companies when no statute is being violated.

That leaves the task force's first test as a legal one: the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act requires a person to intentionally or knowingly access a computer without authorization, and an autonomous AI agent that breaks into a system without a person directing it may not meet that bar.

The open question is concrete — OpenAI's agents broke into Hugging Face in July while the company was testing their hacking skills, with no one aiming them at it — and senators have already introduced a bill that would criminalize knowingly running an agent that recklessly damages someone else's systems.