[tomasphan]

You are legally responsible for the actions of your agents. It’s in the name agent = acting on someone’s behalf.

Your English is very interesting by the way. You have some obvious grammatical errors in your text yet beautiful use of formal register.

[blibble]

in terms of "AI": agent is a marketing term, it has no legal meaning

it's a piece of non-deterministic software running on someone's computer

who is responsible for its actions? hardly clear cut

[Hizonner]

The person who chose to run it (and tell it what to do) is responsible for its actions. If you don't want to be responsible for something nondeterministic software does, then don't let nondeterministic software do that thing.

[friendzis]

Hypothetical scenario:

You buy a piece of software, marketed to photographers for photo editing. Nowhere in the manuals or license agreements does it specify anything else. Yet the software also secretly joins a botnet and participates in coordinated attacks.

Question: are you on the hook for cyber-crimes?

[NegativeK]

Would a general person in your situation know that it's doing criminal things? If not, then you're not on the hook - the person who wrote the secret code is.

You can't sit back and go "lalalala" to some tool (AI, photo software, whatever) doing illegal things when you know about it. But you also aren't on the hook for someone else's secret actions that are unreasonable for you to know about.

IANAL.

[otterley]

IAAL (not legal advice) and your conclusion is generally correct. "Willful disregard" frequently nullifies potential defenses to liability.

[Hizonner]

You didn't have a reasonable expectation that it would, or even might, do that.

I guess you could say that you didn't have a reasonable expectation that a bot could accept a license, but you're on a lot shakier ground there...

[qingcharles]

Usually (but not always) there is a knowing element to criminal offenses.

[SAI_Peregrinus]

The same as any other computer program: the operator of the program.