I don't think this is a moral/ethical issue--everyone agrees that the frontier labs are responsible for hacking attempts. No one is trying to deflect blame.
Instead, this is a legal question: What were the damages? Was the target company negligent in setting up security? Were criminal laws broken? Etc. [IANAL, so forgive the lack of precision.]
If hacked companies had losses, they have an incentive (even a fiduciary duty) to recoup their losses. They do that by suing the company (as, e.g., authors sued Anthropic for copyright infringement). If they haven't sued the company, it means either (a) they didn't have losses, or (b) they're still working on the lawsuit and haven't filed it yet.
The other dynamic is that frontier labs feel competitive pressure to take risks to develop their models. Which risk is higher:
A. A new model being tested hacks into a sensitive site (bank, government, etc.) and the company has to pay a massive fine (or even face jail time).
B. A competitor comes out with a significantly better model and they lose significant market share.
That is a hard choice to make. The frontier labs are asking for government restrictions--that apply to all companies--so that they can minimize A without having to worry about B.
They are trying to minimize their risk (and thus maximize their profits).
Instead, this is a legal question: What were the damages? Was the target company negligent in setting up security? Were criminal laws broken? Etc. [IANAL, so forgive the lack of precision.]
If hacked companies had losses, they have an incentive (even a fiduciary duty) to recoup their losses. They do that by suing the company (as, e.g., authors sued Anthropic for copyright infringement). If they haven't sued the company, it means either (a) they didn't have losses, or (b) they're still working on the lawsuit and haven't filed it yet.
The other dynamic is that frontier labs feel competitive pressure to take risks to develop their models. Which risk is higher:
A. A new model being tested hacks into a sensitive site (bank, government, etc.) and the company has to pay a massive fine (or even face jail time).
B. A competitor comes out with a significantly better model and they lose significant market share.
That is a hard choice to make. The frontier labs are asking for government restrictions--that apply to all companies--so that they can minimize A without having to worry about B.
They are trying to minimize their risk (and thus maximize their profits).