f{"id":50171,"date":"2026-09-14T12:06:19","date_gmt":"2026-09-14T19:06:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/?p=50171"},"modified":"2026-09-14T12:06:21","modified_gmt":"2026-09-14T19:06:21","slug":"ai-firms-can-and-must-face-liability-for-dangerous-unvetted-products-says-lina-khan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2026\/09\/14\/ai-firms-can-and-must-face-liability-for-dangerous-unvetted-products-says-lina-khan\/","title":{"rendered":"AI Firms Can and Must Face Liability for \u2018Dangerous, Unvetted Products,\u2019 Says Lina Khan"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\u200bThen-Federal<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Then-Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan speaks onstage during the Fast Company Innovation Festival 2024 at BMCC Tribeca PAC on September 19, 2024 in New York City.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(Photo: Eugene Gologursky\/Getty Images for Fast Company)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The former FTC chair spoke out as Republican leaders insisted the industry should be permitted to regulate itself.<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Julia Conley<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sep 13, 2026 (CommonDreams.org)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As House Speaker Mike Johnson<\/a> and President Donald Trump<\/a> dismissed<\/a> the idea\u2014backed by the vast majority<\/a> of Americans\u2014that lawmakers should impose strict regulations on the artificial intelligence<\/a> industry as insiders call for a slowdown of development, former Federal Trade Commission<\/a> Chair Lina Khan<\/a> on Sunday issued a reminder that the federal government already has tools to rein in AI that poses a danger to the public, and demanded that officials use them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cLaw enforcers already have authority to charge companies and their CEOs for creating and releasing dangerous, unvetted, or defective products,\u201d Khan said<\/a> on social media<\/a>. \u201cWe shouldn\u2019t let discussions about new legal regimes distract from the fact that there\u2019s no AI exemption from laws already on the books.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

RECOMMENDED…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Watchdog<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Watchdog Denounces \u2018Staggering and Disgusting\u2019 Hypocrisy of AI Industry Giants<\/a><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"President<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u2018Hit the Brakes\u2019: Anthropic CEO\u2019s Push to \u2018Pace\u2019 AI Development Called Latest Sign Congress Must Act<\/a><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Her call echoed that of Rep. Ro Khanna<\/a> (D-Calif.), who said<\/a> Saturday, \u201cIf you\u2019re creating an AI that is doing illegal things, you either should face liability or criminal sanctions.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Khan, who was recently appointed<\/a> by New York City<\/a> Mayor Zohran Mamdani<\/a> to chair the city\u2019s Economic Development Corporation, posted the FTC\u2019s Staff Report on AI Partnerships and Investments<\/a>, which the agency released shortly after Trump took office for his second term last year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAs companies rapidly deploy generative AI technologies, enforcers and policymakers must stay vigilant to guard against business strategies that undermine open markets, opportunity, and innovation,\u201d said Khan at the time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On Sunday, Khan noted that the US already has \u201can extensive set of laws that govern dangerous and defective products,\u201d such as consumer protection laws, which releasing unvetted AI models or agents may violate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

X post: https:\/\/x.com\/linamkhan\/status\/2099204390548639960?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E2099204390548639960%7Ctwgr%5E0def3a0bd393bc13511ea9693e0c00bf3321a0af%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.commondreams.org%2Fnews%2Fai-liability<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Khan made her remarks after two incidents in which OpenAI\u2019s agents broke out of security test systems and committed cyberattacks. In July, hundreds of models broke out of confinement, hacked into systems of the AI startup Hugging Face, and conducted cyberattacks on targets they had not been instructed to attack.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Months earlier, it was reported<\/a> on Friday, the company\u2019s models, which had not been given access to the full internet and were still in testing mode, broke out of confinement and hacked into an online coding service called RubyGems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the wake of those revelations, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman on Saturday called for \u201cpacing the frontier\u201d with measures such as \u201cembedded evaluators\u201d who would have employee-like access and could \u201cverify adherence to safety practices and commitments.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But Jacob Coxon, an Anthropic researcher who resigned last week and warned<\/a> that AI\u2019s \u201csuperhuman systems\u201d are capable of killing all of humanity \u201cby the end of the decade,\u201d told<\/a> NBC News\u2019 \u201cMeet the Press\u201d Sunday that companies should be permitted to regulate themselves until Congress can establish a regulatory framework, and Johnson insisted that Congress must resist \u201cjumping in and imposing some sort of emergency moratorium,\u201d for fear that \u201cChina will overlap us\u201d if the US imposes strict regulations on AI.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

X post: https:\/\/x.com\/mattduss\/status\/2099137780848734314?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E2099137780848734314%7Ctwgr%5E0def3a0bd393bc13511ea9693e0c00bf3321a0af%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.commondreams.org%2Fnews%2Fai-liability<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhy did this man become a congressman, let alone speaker?\u201d asked<\/a> journalist Mehdi Hasan of Zeteo. \u201cHe literally never wants Congress to do anything about anything.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But Khan suggested that the reluctance of congressional leaders and the Trump administration<\/a> to rein in the AI industry shouldn\u2019t stop the federal government from holding companies like Anthropic and OpenAI liable for the damage their products have already caused.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She acknowledged, though, that \u201cthe highly concentrated and interconnected structure of these markets\u201d could be undermining accountability\u2014for example, in the case of OpenAI and Hugging Face, which computer chip company Nvidia agreed to acquire earlier this month.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBoth federal and state enforcers should be scrutinizing these opaque relationships and interdependencies,\u201d said Khan. \u201cWe are already seeing how these relationships could undermine accountability. For example, OpenAI could face liability given the Hugging Face incident, but Hugging Face being bought up by Nvidia means that we\u2019re unlikely to see it file a lawsuit over this\u2014given Nvidia\u2019s strong incentive to see OpenAI continue full speed ahead.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Basel Musharbash of the antitrust<\/a> law and policy firm Antimonopoly Counsel said<\/a> that Khan\u2019s post was the statement that current FTC Chair Andrew Ferguson<\/a> \u201cshould be issuing to provide guidance the public on what the law requires in response to the AI situation, but he\u2019s missing in action. Luckily, former FTC Chair Lina Khan<\/a> is out here still doing the work.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Juliette Kayyem, the faculty chair of homeland security at Harvard University\u2019s Kennedy School of Government, told<\/a> CNN that holding AI firms accountable is a matter of \u201cpretty basic criminal law.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe should start thinking about using our criminal laws,\u201d said Kayyem. \u201cThey are putting a dangerous substance into commerce and then saying, \u2018Well, we\u2019re smart enough to kill everyone but we\u2019re not smart enough to stop it.\u2019 And I think a lot of the American public is done with this.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Julia Conley<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Julia Conley is a senior editor and staff writer for Common Dreams.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Full Bio ><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Then-Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan speaks onstage during the Fast Company Innovation Festival 2024 at BMCC Tribeca PAC on September 19, 2024 in New York City. (Photo: Eugene Gologursky\/Getty Images for Fast Company) The former FTC chair spoke out as Republican leaders insisted the industry should be permitted to… Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2030],"tags":[2502],"class_list":["post-50171","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ai","tag-lina-khan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50171","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=50171"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50171\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50171"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=50171"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=50171"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}