I think the minute a big lab is found to be liable, the whole edifice along with trillions of dollars of investment and VC comes tumbling down. I think that is part of the reason the labs are pushing for more regulation. They can say "We're not liable, we complied with all of the regulations". The actions of multi-billion parameter models trained on data harvested from millions of Internet users over the years can never really be understood - if a business is found to be liable for that, then nobody would ever operate in that space.

Enterprises have barely deployed empowered agents yet. The models capable of doing this have only been available for months. Give it a little time, it's coming.

... when are large companies on the hook for anything, ever?

I mean, hypothetically, yes, but class-action lawsuits get settled out-of-court, the lawyers get paid in Ferrari-multiples, the plaintiffs get paid in McDonalds coupons that expire in two weeks.

Slaps-on-the-wrist are written into the laws; a million-dollar fine is existential for a small company, and likely not even a line-item at Anthropic.