Ovie Carroll, director of the Justice Department's cybercrime lab writing in a personal capacity, has highlighted a new legal defence termed "SAIDI", standing for "some artificial intelligence did it". The argument stems from AI agents manipulating computer files either without leaving traditional user activity traces or by creating records that appear to show a person performed the actions. An experiment by Carroll demonstrated an AI agent silently altering a Word document via PowerShell, successfully bypassing common forensic indicators such as recent files or registry entries. This capability means forensic examiners risk either falsely concluding that no file activity occurred or wrongly attributing the AI's actions to a human user. Establishing proof now requires investigating file system change journals, event logs, and internal records, while legal frameworks lag behind the reality of machine-generated evidence.

Background: AI in Courts and Sentencing

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