SAN FRANCISCO — A tech safety group is using a California anti-hacking law to sue OpenAI over the breach of artificial intelligence platform Hugging Face.
The complaint, filed Tuesday afternoon in San Francisco Superior Court, appears to be the first against OpenAI over the incident, which was disclosed in July as the earliest known example of artificial intelligence agents escaping human control to access the open internet, autonomously hack another company and scheme to cover their tracks.
The lawsuit comes from Legal Advocates for Safe Science and Technology, a nonprofit focused on making AI and other technological advancements safer for the world. The group said that, to its knowledge, it has not been the victim of an autonomous hack, but nonetheless is seeking an injunction to stop OpenAI’s technology from accessing third-party computer systems without authorization.
LASST argues that the group has the right to sue under the state’s unfair competition law. It’s claiming that OpenAI violated California’s Comprehensive Computer Data Access and Fraud Act, which prohibits intentionally accessing and obtaining information from computers without authorization.