I don't think this is a difficult question. The US has a history of civil product liability cases - see tobacco companies (Philip Morris), the Ford Pinto, the recent Meta cases, and the cases against character.ai.
From Investopedia [1], "[f]or a product liability claim to succeed, the plaintiffs in the suit must prove that a product was defective at the time it was transferred from the accused, and that the defect did cause the injury that's been claimed". It doesn't seem like a huge leap to me to argue that these models were defective insofar as they could not be safely used in a way that did not break the law.
I'm not a lawyer, and I'm not arguing that this is legally cut-and-dry, but I do expect that we'll have some answers about whether AI companies bear any sort of product liability sooner than later.
From Investopedia [1], "[f]or a product liability claim to succeed, the plaintiffs in the suit must prove that a product was defective at the time it was transferred from the accused, and that the defect did cause the injury that's been claimed". It doesn't seem like a huge leap to me to argue that these models were defective insofar as they could not be safely used in a way that did not break the law.
I'm not a lawyer, and I'm not arguing that this is legally cut-and-dry, but I do expect that we'll have some answers about whether AI companies bear any sort of product liability sooner than later.
1 - https://www.investopedia.com/the-5-largest-u-s-product-liabi...