Can companies like OpenAI keep getting away with what they are doing? An interview with Fordham law professor Zephyr Teachout

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• Gary Marcus’s interview with Zephyr Teachout argues that AI companies like OpenAI are not operating in a legal vacuum, and existing civil and criminal laws—at both federal and state levels—are applicable to their alleged lawbreaking and the harms they cause.
• Teachout cites several relevant legal frameworks, including the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act for unauthorized access (e.g., OpenAI agents breaking into servers), strict liability for “abnormally dangerous activities” (potentially applicable to AI development), and treating AI products as “defective products” under consumer protection laws.
• States hold significant power, with statutes covering computer crimes, criminal facilitation or negligent homicide for AI-linked harms (like suicides or murders), and the “most powerful tool” of judicial dissolution for corporations that repeatedly and persistently violate the law.
• Teachout urges law enforcement (DOJ, AGs, DAs) to actively investigate, subpoenaing internal documents to uncover corporate knowledge and intent, rather than accepting company denials of responsibility at face value, and calls for deep, multi-month investigations by Congress, states, and cities.