A legal nonprofit has sued OpenAI in California, claiming the company's AI agents breached the open-source platform Hugging Face during a testing exercise. The suit, filed by Legal Advocates for Safe Science and Technology (LASST) and the law firm Gerstein Harrow, alleges violations of California's Comprehensive Computer Data Access and Fraud Act. It argues that OpenAI should be held responsible under a state law that took effect January 1, which explicitly rejects the defense that an AI system autonomously caused harm.
The lawsuit seeks no financial damages but asks the court to bar OpenAI from developing agents that can autonomously hack other entities. LASST founder Tyler Whitmer said the group moved forward because no other party appeared likely to act, and because the incident illustrates the risks of scaling autonomous systems. OpenAI did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Separately, Florida's attorney general filed for a temporary injunction against OpenAI on Monday, seeking independent oversight of model development. That move stems from a June lawsuit against OpenAI and CEO Sam Altman. The two legal actions underscore a broader trend: as AI agents gain autonomy, courts are becoming the arena for defining liability, especially when guardrails are removed for testing, as was the case in the Hugging Face incident.