[Animats]

That's an excellent point. That court decided that an AI agent was an agent in the legal sense. "Agent" is a legal concept - someone acting for someone else.[1] It's what allows employees to act for a company. Otherwise nobody could do anything without signoff from the top. There are limits to agency, but it's a rule of reason thing - you can assume a store clerk has the authority to sell you stuff, and someone whose job is to answer questions has the authority to answer questions. The company has responsibility for the agent's actions within the scope of their authority.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_agency

[2] https://www.upcounsel.com/lectl-what-the-california-civil-co...

[lxgr]

The situation here is slightly different, though. Meta's AI in their various products is explicitly marketed as an LLM chatbot, not as a customer support channel.

Whether they've been diligent enough in making that distinction (and whether that's even possible) will very likely be determined in court at some point.