WilmerHale Partner Josh Geltzer and Counsel Jeff Habenicht have published “Artificial Guilt? A Practitioner’s Guide to Criminal Liability in the Age of GenAI,” offering one of the clearest frameworks to date for understanding how criminal law may adapt to rapidly advancing generative AI technologies.
The authors outline how GenAI’s unpredictability, complexity, and emerging agentic capabilities challenge long‑standing assumptions about intent and liability. Their analysis walks practitioners through foundational criminal law concepts, examines how courts have handled analogous technological harms, and highlights recent DOJ guidance signaling that developers of neutral tools should not be held responsible absent clear criminal intent.
Geltzer and Habenicht ultimately propose a practical roadmap for assessing criminal exposure for users, developers, operators, and integrators of GenAI systems — emphasizing that while liability remains difficult to establish, expectations for responsible safeguards are rising quickly as AI capabilities advance.
