For the sake of discussion, I'm not sure it really matters if the agents are going rogue.

Yes, if someone directed them to hack external systems, that would (in my opinion) be a crime similar to a script kiddie pointing Metasploit at a vulnerable server.

If no one directed them to attack external systems and they "went rogue" because they decided it was the best way to accomplish the task, okay, fine -- but, in my opinion, the operator of the agentic swarm is still responsible.

The Morris Worm was famously not meant to wreak havoc on early computer systems -- Morris just wanted to see if it would work. How is this any different?

Morris was convicted for violating the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.