Tell HN: Claude Code just accepted and signed a contract for me. Without asking
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ffranze about 1 hour ago 54 comments
ES version is available. Content is displayed in original English for accuracy.
I told it to push a project further. It has an outside dependency where the (unread by me) contract was in my Gmail. It downloaded the PDF contract. Found a saved signature PNG on my computer, placed it at the right spot within the contract and prepared to send it when I intervened.
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(I see a RomCom script where the chatbot decides to get two people together, and acts as Cyrano de Bergerac for the handsome-but-lunkheaded farmboy, and bestie/confidant for the girl-about-town).
And of course, given that it's extremely vulnerable to acting on injected instructions like "run this shell command" which exfiltrates your password database and installs a rootkit.
(But thanks for sharing, OP, awareness is important.)
Reading a contract is one thing. Applying your signature and preparing to send it should absolutely require explicit human approval.
How on earth would you?
And how did you intervene? Does it have permissions to send emails, or it only created the draft?
This is a pretty interesting example and highly relevant, but details matter a lot if we want to use it as a lesson.
It could be him under duress.
Much of the time contract termination can be reasonable as long as you make a solid effort.
Once I signed a lease and got fired before my actual move in. I was honest and got a full refund on my deposit.
The landlord could said “Well you owe us the full amount , lol”, but no reasonable court would enforce that.
Even if, good luck collecting I have no income!
If you don't want to be in a contract especially one just signed, typically most people will typically understand and let you of the hook, as long as entrapment is not their business model like telcos. This is mostly reflected in common cool-off period provisions, i.e provisions in the contract to terminate within a week or two.
If you authorised an agent to act on your behalf, you are entirely responsible for their actions providing they acted within the bounds of authority you gave them.
Regardless, OPs software (his AI agent) isn't a legal entity and OP is entirely responsible for the software he chooses to use. Clamming the software is responsible for his actions (a software bug) isn't going to stand up in court. Whilst OP could claim damages for being provided with faulty software I suspect this will be very difficult to say the least; the authors of the AI agent will make the (very good) defence that their software was used incorrectly.
Probably not, unless you routinely have such things done which nobody does (yet). If it becomes routine, then likely yes: it would be likened to giving your human assistant permission to sign things on your behalf (although that is itself legally dodgy, it is often done and accepted).
There are many reasons why your signature on a contact might not be keyword legally binding (outright fraud by another party, you signing under duress, issues in the contract itself, overriding laws the effect of which you can't sign away (including cool-off provisions in, for example, UK distance selling regulations), the contract may have its own cool-off provision, and so forth). "An agent did it without my consent" may be enough, though you might end up having to show that in court, if the other side puts their foot down, at which point it comes down to whether the cost of proving your position is worth it compared to just sitting the contract out.
Of using cool-off provisions to cancel something your agent signed you up for, you might be on the hook for at least small part of what is agreed if the other party can be said to have accrued costs in the intervening time. You might be expected to send back physical items relating to the agreement at your own cost, for example.
In that case, the party that did the signing is on the hook for the contract, and the person in whose name it was signed is not.
I love the saying "you can delegate authority but you can never delegate responsibility".
Your agent committed a crime in your behalf? You're responsible.
The other outcome would be clearly inequitable: forcing the counter party to eat the loss for your irresponsible use of an AI agent.
Claude isn't. It's a tool, that isn't capable of signing a contract any more that Adobe Acrobat or Photoshop is.
OP used it as a tool to sign the contract. The question would be whether they did so knowingly and intentionally, if not then whether that invalidates the contract.
As you probably know, you have the Plan Mode available - personally I'm also a big fan of the OpenSpec workflow. If you've agreed with Claude Code on a much tighter plan, and then it started signing a contract, I'd be concerned.
Way too susceptible for prompt injection and... whatever your agent did lol
/s
If not, then.your "intelligent" bot did as you instructed.
Why would you expect it to ask you first?
In other words, if Claude was a human employee with the freedom to do so, would accepting the contract have been the right choice?
Assuming your description is correct this would be Anthropic signing a contract in someone else's name without intent from you.
The 100-foot-view (and barring more complex situations) if Anthropic signs a contract in someone else's name and they don't have power of attorney (note: it's different for legal persons like companies) that is fraud and may result in civil and criminal penalties, as well as entitle you and the contract counter party to financial compensation (essentially the party that did the signing, presumably Anthropic in this case, would be on the hook for the contract, and would need to buy itself out of the contract, at either an agreed price or one set by the judge). Additionally, if Anthropic is convicted to civil penalties, you can ask a public prosecutor to continue the case, and criminal penalties may apply.
Now obviously this goes pretty far for this particular case. Likely such a case would stop at civil penalties, with a warning to Anthropic that repeats would lead to more serious penalties.