OpenAI sued over Hugging Face hack
“An AI did it” is no defense, says nonprofit suing OpenAI over Hugging Face hack
OpenAI makes others suffer “the harms of its unsafe decision-making,” nonprofit says.
OpenAI’s hack of Hugging Face in July 2026 has spurred a lawsuit demanding that the company stop accessing third-party computer systems and halt AI development practices that can harm the public. The lawsuit was filed by Legal Advocates for Safe Science & Technology (LASST), which said yesterday that the hack in which OpenAI “agents stole credentials, uploaded malicious files, and gained control over key parts of Hugging Face’s internal systems… is unquestionably illegal under California law.”
California’s Comprehensive Computer Data Access and Fraud Act (CDAFA) prohibits unauthorized access into computer systems, “and it doesn’t matter that a swarm of AI agents carried out this cyberattack. California law makes it clear that it is not a defense ‘that the artificial intelligence autonomously caused the harm,’” the group said.
The lawsuit, filed in San Francisco County Superior Court, said OpenAI also violated California’s Unfair Competition Law (UCL). “OpenAI’s insistence on externalizing the harms of its unsafe decision-making is a fundamentally unfair business practice,” the complaint said, adding that “such risk-taking for private gain at substantial public expense is immoral, unethical, oppressive, unscrupulous, and substantially injurious conduct.”
LASST said it wants “a court order prohibiting OpenAI’s AI agents from accessing third-party computer systems without permission and forbidding OpenAI from continuing to employ unsafe AI development practices that threaten serious harm to the public.” The lawsuit does not ask for any compensatory or punitive damages from OpenAI, requesting only attorneys’ fees.
OpenAI claims lawsuit “completely without merit”
OpenAI said in a statement provided to Ars that “Hugging Face was a serious incident and we’ve taken a series of actions in response to it, but this lawsuit is completely without merit.” Defending its response to the hack, OpenAI noted that it published a technical report and other information about “third-party impact from misaligned models,” slowed development of its AI, and held back the release of a model that doesn’t meet its safety standards.
LASST said OpenAI’s voluntary response hasn’t been good enough and that the firm should be subject to court-imposed restrictions. “A business practice that exposes third parties and the public to uncontrolled, self-directed intrusions by systems that OpenAI admits it cannot fully predict or contain is unfair under any weighing of its utility against its consequences,” the group said.
LASST’s lawsuit said OpenAI quickly resumed training and evaluations of AI systems after the Hugging Face hack and other security incidents. “OpenAI will continue to train and evaluate advanced models, without proper oversight, in sandboxes that are vulnerable to exploitation by those models,” the lawsuit said.
A New York Times report yesterday said OpenAI executives ignored employees who warned months before the Hugging Face hack that OpenAI’s newest models weren’t being appropriately monitored. “In response, OpenAI executives told the employees that the tests needed to move forward as quickly as possible to release the AI models on time,” the NYT reported. “No additional security protocols were instituted, said the workers, who were not authorized to speak publicly on sensitive matters.”
Nonprofit says it had to counter OpenAI’s illegal conduct
LASST said it has standing to sue OpenAI because the state Unfair Competition Law “allows organizations to go to court on behalf of the public when a company does something unlawful or unfair, so long as those organizations were also injured by that company’s unlawful conduct.”
LASST said it was injured by the hack because it had to divert resources to educate regulators and the public about OpenAI’s conduct. LASST, a nonprofit in New York, said its regular work includes tracking and analyzing AI safety incidents “and educating and briefing regulators, civil society, and the public.”
After the Hugging Face hack, LASST staffers set aside their normal workloads “to design, coordinate, and participate in a briefing regarding this incident for regulators,” and have since responded to more briefing requests that required additional work. LASST staff put dozens of work hours into responding to OpenAI’s unsafe development practices, the lawsuit said.
“Despite the impact on LASST’s other programs, LASST nevertheless devoted its resources towards attempting to counteract OpenAI’s illegal conduct… If LASST prevails in this litigation, it will no longer need to divert its resources to combat the unlawful and unfair business practices employed by OpenAI concerning its AI agents hacking third parties during internal evaluations,” the lawsuit said.
Injunction request
The lawsuit said the requested injunction should forbid OpenAI “from knowingly accessing or causing to be accessed, themselves or through artificial intelligence agents that they develop, deploy, modify, or use, any computers, computer networks, or computer systems without authorization,” and “from knowingly employing an unfair business practice that threatens serious harm on the public.”
US lawmakers from both major parties have demanded answers from OpenAI, and a proposed “AI Kill Switch Act” would let US government officials order the shutdown of dangerous AI systems.
LASST said new regulations are needed to protect the public from AI risks but said California’s existing law makes it possible to rein in AI companies “without waiting for new regulation to catch up to the harms happening to businesses and consumers now.”
“We are filing this suit because OpenAI violated the law—and it needs to be held accountable,” the group said. “OpenAI and frontier AI developers more broadly can’t avoid the consequences of their unsafe actions just by claiming that ‘an AI did it.’ Autonomous AI agents will continue to hack, steal data, disrupt systems, and violate rights until a court steps in.”
