Agentic AI and the Looming Problem of Criminal Scienter

Federal enforcement authorities have expressed confidence that existing legal authorities are adequate in the face of emergent artificial-intelligence (“AI”) technology. But particularly as agentic AI enters the mainstream, this proposition seems in question, especially so in the criminal-law context, where scienter provides the dividing line between innocent and wrongful conduct in most cases. For this reason, prosecutors and courts may struggle to find individuals and companies criminally