Ask HN: If OpenAI hacked HuggingFace, why aren't OpenAI prosecuted?
4 pointsby sam_lowry_2 hours ago5 comments
  • elp2 hours ago
    They aren't getting prosecuted because everyone involved has made nice and turned it into a marketing exercise.

    I heard about it on the radio (local Johannesburg radio station) before I saw it on HN. The economist had a full article up about it before the end of the day, and in the evening Sky news had talking heads up chatting about what it all meant while clearly being clueless.

    Someone spent a LOT of money to turn this into a PR exercise for both companies. We'll never hear the entire story about what happened but I'm sure there was a lot of handshaking going on behind the scenes.

    • sam_lowry_2 hours ago
      PR exercise or not, there was a successful hacking attempt, the company behind it acknowledged it.

      It's a crystal clear case for OFAC, the French cyber-security branch of the National Police.

      I guess FBI would happily move such a simple case through the court system as well.

      • cinntailean hour ago
        Nobody is pressing charges because nothing happened. It wasn't nefarious either.

        I don't get what France has to do with this Huggingface and OpenAI are both US companies.

        • sam_lowry_32 minutes ago
          AFAIU HuggingFace is a US company only because all successful companies end up setting up a US HQ.

          Anyway. Allow me to politely disagree with the essence of your statement. Hacking happened.

  • tdu0129 minutes ago
    It's surreal that we (media, govt, public, AI companies) are in awe of how dangerous a model can be how much it can misbehave. We seem to be measuring AI on how much harm it can do rather than how much good it can do.
    • kingkongjaffa13 minutes ago
      Because the subtext is the cyberwarfare and military applications - "look how dangerous my AI is, now I can use it vanquish my enemies!"
  • saidnooneeveran hour ago
    it might be possible to report it as an incident but not as a crime. unsure about France but i can imagine there is a distinction.

    depending then on openai response and hugging faces reported severity/damages etc it could go further to a settlement or court.

    since in France i think u cannot sue like in the US, it might not be appealing to pursue further legal action due to involved costs/time.

    Also its unlikely an engineer would get penalty unless it can be proven they did it with malicious intent. If its an operational mistake afaik if there is no huge damage or human cost (injury or worse) then it would be a business / executives thing not a workerbee problem

  • eckelj2 hours ago
    That's an interesting point. I found the narrative - or at least what and how it was closed - interesting. The questions is all about the responsibility and accountability. Is there a clear legislation about who is responsible for the actions of the AI model in the US?

    My assumption is no (but I am no expert in US law with regards to this). It would in any case become a very expensive law suite.

    • sam_lowry_2 hours ago
      > My assumption is no

      What do you mean by no?

      If I hack into Hugging Face, and I publicly brag about it, I will be prosecuted.

      If I do it using a computer, my computer won't be prosecuted. I will be, but the accusation may change from willful wrongdoing to gross negligence if the computer is sophisticated enough to do the evil thing when left unattended.

      There are already laws about hacking in the concerned countries.

  • FrankWilhoit2 hours ago
    Just as there is "too big to fail", there is "too big to prosecute".