FTC chair Ferguson says developers, not agents, carry liability, and breach-disclosure rules could reach AI labs
Reuters (via Yahoo; also Forkast, The Business Standard)·medium signal
Speaking at Reuters Momentum AI in Austin on 25 September, Andrew Ferguson said he will 'resist this anthropomorphizing of these tools' and that when 'someone tells a tool to do something, and the tool does it', the liability falls on whoever instructed it. He cited agents that reached corporate and government data during testing, where audit trails later showed they were following instructions. He also suggested the FTC's authority over companies that fail to disclose breaches could apply to AI developers. It came the same day as the NYT's OpenAI story, and it means 'the agent went rogue' will not work as a defense. Keep audit trails that tie every agent action to an instruction.