Breadvan

Breadvan (pronounced bred-vann)

(1) A delivery vehicle adapted for carrying loaves of bread or other bakery items for delivery to retail outlets, hotels, cafés etc.

(2) As the Ferrari 250 GT SWB (short wheelbase) “Breadvan”, a one-off vehicle produced in 1962.

(3) As a descriptor of the “breadvan” style applied to the rear of vehicles to seek aerodynamic advantages in competition, variously applied, mostly during the 1960s & 1970s.

1840s: A compound word, the construct being bread + van.  Bread was from the Middle English bred & breed (kind of food made from flour or the meal of some grain, kneaded into a dough, fermented, and baked), from the Old English brēad (fragment, bit, morsel, crumb), from the Proto-West Germanic braud, from the Proto-Germanic braudą (cooked food, leavened bread), from the primitive Indo-European berw- & brew- (to boil, to see).  Etymologists note also the Proto-Germanic braudaz & brauþaz (broken piece, fragment), from the primitive Indo-European bera- (to split, beat, hew, struggle) and suggest bread may have been a conflation of both influences.  It was cognate with the Old Norse brauð (bread), the Old Frisian brad (bread), the Middle Dutch brot (bread), the German Brot (bread), the Scots breid (bread), the Saterland Frisian Brad (bread), the West Frisian brea (bread), the Dutch brood (bread), the Danish & Norwegian brød (bread), the Swedish bröd (bread), the Icelandic brauð (bread), the Albanian brydh (I make crumbly, friable, soft) and the Latin frustum (crumb).  It displaced the non-native Middle English payn (bread), from the Old French pain (bread), having in the twelfth century replaced the usual Old English word for "bread" (hlaf).  Van was short for caravan, from the Middle French caravane, from the French caravane, from the Old French carvane & carevane, (or the Medieval Latin caravana), from the Persian کاروان‎ (kârvân), from the Middle Persian (kārawān) (group of desert travelers), from the Old Persian, ultimately from the primitive Indo-European ker- (army).  Most famously, the word was used to designate a group of people who were travelling by camel or horse on the variety of routes referred to as the Silk Road and it reached the West after being picked up during the Crusades, from the Persian forms via the Arabic qairawan and connected ultimately to the Sanskrit karabhah (camel).  Breadvan (also as bread-van) is a noun; the noun plural is breadvans.

Breadvans various

Progress: Horse-drawn breadvan (left) and Austin (left) & Morris (right), breadvans, Melbourne, Australia, 1959 (right).  The Morris Commercial J-type was produced between 1949 and 1961 and between 1957 and 1960s there was also a “badge-engineered” (and mechanically identical) Austin version.  The BMC (British Motor Corporation) conglomerate (that ultimately would be absorbed into the doomed British Leyland (1968-1986) became notorious for “badge-engineering” (one model produced under six different brands) their passenger cars but their light commercial vehicles often were produced as both an Austin and Morris, the original rationale being to provide products to sometimes separate dealer networks.

The breadvans were first horse-drawn and came into use in the in the 1840s.  These vans were used to transport freshly baked bread from bakeries to homes and businesses in cities and towns in the UK, Europe, North America and Australasia.  The breadvan was adopted as an efficiency measure, being a significant improvement on the traditional system of delivery which was usually a “baker’s boy” carrying baskets of bread on foot to customers.  The horse-drawn breadvans allowed bakers increase production and expand their customer base.  The construction of the vehicles was not particularly specialized but they did need to be (1) waterproof to protect the goods from the elements and (2) secure enough that the bread was not accessible by opportunistic birds, dogs or thieves.  Enzo Ferrari (1898-1988) became famous for the cars carrying his name (though never much associated with breadvans) but his imperious attitude to customers and employees alike led to a number of them storming out of Maranello and creating their own machines.  Some, like Lamborghini endured through many ups & downs, others like Bizzarrini survived for a while and ATS (Automobili Turismo Sport) produced a dozen exquisite creations before succumbing to commercial reality.  Another curious product of a dispute with il Commendatore was the Ferrari 250 GT SWB “Breadvan”.

Ferrari 250 GT SWB “Breadvan” in profile (left) and leading a 250 GT SWB, the car on which it was based.

Ferrari’s 250 GTO became available to customers in 1962 and one with his name on the list was Count Giovanni Volpi di Misurata (b 1938), principal of the Scuderia Serenissima (Scuderia SSS Republica di Venezia) operation but when Enzo Ferrari found out Volpi was one of the financial backers of the ATS project, he scratched the count’s name from the order book.  Through one of the back channel deals still a feature of Italian commerce, Volpi did obtain a GTO but he decided he’d like to make a point to il Commendatore so opted to make something even better for his team’s assault on the 1962 Le Mans 24 hour endurance classic.  In the Scuderia Serenissima stable was what was reputed to be the world’s fastest Ferrari GT SWB (serial number 2819 GT) and it was decided to update this to a specification beyond even that of the GTO, a task entrusted to Giotto Bizzarrini (1926-2023) who, with remarkable alacrity, performed the task in the workshops of noted coachbuilder Piero Drogo (1926–1973).  The changes wrought were radical indeed.  To obtain the ideal centre of gravity, the 3.0 litre (180 cubic inch) V12 engine was shifted 4¾ inches (120 mm) rearward, sitting entirely behind the front axle and mounted lower, something permitted by the installation of a dry sump lubrication system.  Emulating the factory GTO, six downdraft, twin choke Weber carburetors sat atop the inlet manifold, the tuned engine generating a healthy 300 HP (horsepower).  Given the re-engineering, on paper, the car was at least a match for the GTO except it lacked the factory machine’s five-speed gearbox, running instead the standard four-speed.  

Ferrari 250 GT SWB “Breadvan”.  It's not known if anyone has ever calculated the rear compartment's capacity but it would have held a few loaves and they'd likely have been delivered more quickly than most.

What really caught the eye however was Bizzarrini’s striking bodywork, the sharp nose so low a Perspex cover had to be fabricated to shield the cluster of a dozen velocity stacks of the Webers protruding above the hood (bonnet) line.  Most extraordinary however was the roofline that extended from the top of the windscreen to the rear where it was sharply cut-off to create what remains perhaps the most extreme Kammtail ever executed.  The count was impressed, the creation matching the GTO for power while being 100 kg (220 lb) lighter and aerodynamically more efficient.  Accordingly he included it in the three-car Ferrari team he assembled for Le Mans along with the GTO and a 250 TR/61; it's appearance caused a sensation, the French dubbing it la camionnette (little truck) but it was the English nickname “Breadvan” that really caught on.  To a degree the count proved his point.  Under pressure from Ferrari the organizers forced the Breadvan to run in the prototype class against pure racing cars rather than the GTOs in the granturismo category but in the race, it outpaced the whole GT field until, after four hours, a broken driveshaft forced its retirement.  Subsequently, it was entered that season in a further four events, scoring two GT class victories and a class track record before being retired.  Count Volpi sold the car in 1965 for US$2,800 (it was then just another no longer competitive, "clapped-out" race car) but it has survived to be a popular entrant on the historic racing circuit.

2021 Ferrari Breadvan homage by Niels van Roij Design.

Dutch designer Niels van Roij (b 1984) runs a specialist design house and in 2019 was commissioned to built a one-off “Ferrari Breadvan homage”.  Two years in the making, the project was based on a 550 Maranello (tipo F133, 1996-2002), the model chosen because it was the company’s last front-engined, V12 built with the classic open-gate manual transmission.  With the increase in the money supply (most of which went to the upper few percent of the population), the market for bespoke creations (thought effectively extinct since the demise in the 1960s of most of the coach-building business) has grown and for those not content with the long and expensive option lists now offered by some manufacturers, true exclusivity can be obtained by commissioning a one-off creation.  Typically, the things cost at least US$2 million.  

Breadvans, crashed and fixed.

Breadvans ancient and (slightly more) modern can crash or otherwise be damaged and while some will be written off (typically if replacement is economically more viable than repair), if the vehicle is sufficiently valuable, it will be repaired.  The Ferrari Breadvan hasn’t been sold in a public exchange since the mid-1960s although it has shifted between collections on a number of occasions but always via private treaties.  A current market valuation is thus speculative but as a unique Ferrari 250 SWB of historical significance, it will be a big number and current estimates are between US$25-30 million, a reasonable increase from the US$2,800 realized in 1965.  So, the dented Ferrari Breadvan gets fixed and England’s RS Panels, based in Attleborough Fields Industrial Estate, Nuneaton was entrusted with the task after one “prang”.  Specialists in the aluminum and steel panels forming the usually curvaceous but occasionally brutalist lines of classic-era Ferraris, Maseratis, Jaguars, Aston Martins and such, as many owners discovered after RS returned their repaired or restored cars, they found the fit and finish was of a higher standard than when they left the factory, all those years ago.  Ferraris especially were notorious for looking gorgeous but if one looked too closely at the welds and joins not usually seen, the impression could be a little dented.  After emerging from RS Panels, it’s likely the Breadvan is in its finest ever condition.

1965 Ford GT40 Mark I (left) 1966 Ford J Car (centre) & 1967 Ford GT40 Mark IV (right).

As well as the ATS, Lamborghinis and Bizzarrinis, Enzo Ferrari’s attitude to those who disagreed with him also begat the Ford GT40, a well-known tale recounted (with a little license) in the 20th century Fox film Ford vs Ferrari (2019).  In 7.0 litre (427 cubic inch) form, the GT40 Mark II won at Le Mans in 1966 but Ford’s engineers were aware the thing was overweight and lacked the aerodynamic efficiency of the latest designs so embarked on a development program, choosing the project name “J Car”, an allusion to the “Appendix J” regulations (one of the few genuinely good ideas the FIA (Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (the International Automobile Federation) came up with before it became world sport's dopiest regulatory body) with which it conformed.  The aluminum honeycomb chassis was commendably light and, noting the speed advantage gained by the Ferrari Breadvan in 1962, a similar rear section was fabricated with tests confirming the reduction in drag.  Unfortunately, the additional speed it enabled exposed the limitation of the breadvanesque lines: above a certain speed the large flat surface acted like an aircraft’s wing and the ensuing lift provoked lethal instability, one fatal crash proving the lightweight chassis also was fragile.  The “J Car” was thus abandoned and a more conventional approach was taken for both the chassis and body of the GT40 Mark IV and it proved successful, in 1967 gaining the second of Ford’s four successive victories at Le Mans (1966-1969).

The modern Ferrari "breadvans"

Ferrari 250 GT SWB “Breadvan” (left) and 2013 Ferrari FF (right).

Rather than the 250 Breadvan, it was probably market research that inspired the Ferrari FF (2011-2016), the Italian factory's first take on the shooting brake concept although in the 1950s there had been some built with opening rear hatches a la the fixed-roof versions of the Jaguar E-Type (1961-1974).  Over the decades, there had been more than a dozen "variations on the theme of a Ferrari station wagon" by a number of coachbuilders, all in their own way distinctive but none improved the lines of the donor car on which they were based, unlike the Jaguar XJS shooting brakes which looked so good it was remarkable one never appeared in the factory's catalogue.  According to the factory, "FF" stood for "Ferrari Four" a reference to the AWD (all wheel drive) configuration although it may also have been intended to remind potential buyers the thing could seat four and the promotional material included pictures of ski-racks and even a roof-mounted “ski-box”, able to hold ski-gear for four.  Clearly, the combination of AWD traction and the carrying capacity was a hint this was a car for those who liked to drive to the ski-fields.  The Ferrari FF "shooting brake" (the factory seems not to have used the term although most journalists seems to thought it best except the better informed who referenced the 250 "Breadvan") was very much in the same vein, its capaciousness closer to that of a “big coupé” rather than any size of station wagon although the factory did circulate photographs of the rear-compartment comfortably (if snugly) packed with a set of golf-clubs and a half dozen-odd travel bags; with folding rear seats, Ferrari claimed a trunk (boot) capacity of 450-800 litres (16-28 cubic feet).

1966 Jensen FF Series 1 (left) and 2017 Ferrari GTC4Lusso (right).

Despite the name, there was apparently no intention to link the car with the Jensen FF (1966-1971) a pioneering machine which featured both all wheel drive (AWD although then still called 4WD (four wheel drive)) and anti-lock brakes (an early, mechanical implementation derived from use in aviation which was most effective).  Anti-lock braking is essentially a form of “pressure modulation” and the modern abbreviation "ABS" doesn’t reference the often quoted  “Anti-Lock Braking System”; the correct source is Anti-Bloc System, the name adopted in 1966 when Daimler-Benz and the Heidelberg electronics company Teldix (later absorbed by Bosch) began a co-development of a hybrid analogue-electronic system.  The system used on the Jensen FF was an early, mechanical implementation derived from use in aviation which have proved effective for aircraft landing on icy runways).

Marketing opportunity for niche players: A Lindsay Lohan breadvan, Reykjavik, Iceland.

The Jensen FF really wasn’t a shooting brake although the huge and distinctive rear window was also a hatch so it did offer some of the advantages.  Despite the high price, the Jensen FF sold remarkably well but its market potential was limited because all Ferguson’s development work had been done in England using RHD (right-hand-drive) vehicles and the system was so specific it wasn’t possible to make a left-hand-drive (LHD) FF without re-engineering the whole mechanism, the apparatus so bulky the passenger's front seat was narrower than that of the driver so much did things intrude.  Consequently, only 320 were built, apparently at a financial loss.  Ferrari did better with their FF, over 2000 sold between 2011–2016 and although the packaging may have been remarkably efficient, with a 6.3 litre (382 cubic inch) V12 it was never going to be economical, listed by the 2013 US Department of Energy as the least fuel-efficient car in the midsize class, sharing that dubious honor with the bigger, heavier (though not as rapid) Bentley Mulsanne.  For owners, the 335 km/h (208 mph) top speed was presumably sufficient compensation.  When production ended, the FF was replaced by the conceptually similiar GTC4Lusso (2016-2020) and, unusually, in 2017 the factory announced the GTC4Lusso T, the appended "T" a reference to it being powered by a twin-turbocharged V8 rather than its older sibling's V12; the V8 was RWD (rear wheel drive) but did retain the 4WS (four-wheel steering) system.  The last of the pair left the factory late in 2020 and were not replaced so there have been no Ferrari Breadvans since.

Homemade breadvans

Ford Anglia, Rallye Monte-Carlo, 1962 (left) & Ford Anglia "breadvans" built for New Zealand Allcomer racing during the 1960s.

In the US, at a time with a million dollars was still a lot of money, Ford spent probably at least a million on the GT40’s abortive breadvan but in New Zealand, it doubtful the amateur racers in the popular “Allcomers” category (a close cousin of the admirable Formula Libre) spent even UD$100 in the development of their “breadvans”.  In the Allcomer category, the “breadvans” (again a nod to the Count Volpi’s 1962 Ferrari) were Ford Anglias with a rear section modified to gain some aerodynamic advantage.  The English Ford Anglia 105E (1959–1968) had an unusual reverse-angle rear-window (borrowed from some of the corporation's US Lincolns & Mercurys), a design chosen to optimize headroom for back-seat passengers and that it did but it also induced additional drag which, while of no great consequence at the speeds attained in rallying or on public roads, did compromise the top speed, something of great concern to those who found the light, agile machines otherwise well-suited to racing.  In the spirit of improvisation for which New Zealand Allcomer racing was renowned, “breadvans” soon proliferated, fabricated variously from fibreglass, aluminum or steel (and reputedly even paper-mache although that may be apocryphal and based on the use of the technique to create molds for a fibreglass structure) and the approach was successful, Anglias competitive in some forms of racing well into the 1970s by which time some had, improbably, been re-powered with V8 engines, an Allcomer solution for just about any problem.

La camionnette: Citroën Baguette Vans

1972 Citroën SM with Michelin's RR “plastic” wheels.

The Citroën SM (1970-1975) was not the success the manufacturer had anticipated in the heady days of the mid 1960s when the design parameters were finalized.  Then, oil was cheap, seemingly limitless and rules about exhaust emissions and safety so minor as to be barely an impediment to the imagination of engineers but, in a very short time much would change, notably US legislators beginning to impose passenger vehicle emission standards in an attempt to reduce the smog that had become a blight upon many cities and the publication in 1965 of Unsafe at Any Speed by crusading lawyer Ralph Nader (b 1934).  Nader’s book was an incitement of the design of US-built cars but what it triggered was an on-rush of legislation that would be imposed on any car sold in that lucrative market and while re-engineering was viable for some imports selling in volume, for niche products, the accountants couldn’t make the economics work; the SM was one of many victims, the last sold in the US leaving the showroom in 1973.  That meant its demise there couldn’t be blamed on the first oil shock (1973-1974) that wrought such a change on the global industry and one of the ironies of the era is that among vehicles sold in the US in its price range and offering such performance (especially were top-speed used as a yardstick), the SM was the one with the lowest fuel consumption, achieved by the use of a relatively small (a V6 of 2.7 or 3.0 litres (163 or 181 cubic inch)) and what were at the time industry-leading aerodynamics.

1974 Citroën HY (1947–1981) breadvan.

Things were however different in Europe where gas (petrol) was more expensive and an engine of that displacement was thought “large”; greatly SM sales were affected although the writing was on the wall even before OAPEC (Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries) on 17 October, 1973 imposed their first oil embargo, the car’s reputation for unreliability and costly maintenance spreading rapidly although that was a product more of infrastructure than design.  While by the standards of the time a complex machine, experience has shown well-maintained SMs are commendably robust but the problem was the Maserati-sourced V6 engine was unusual in using a 90^o configuration (it was essentially a cut-down V8) meaning aspects of the tuning were novel to most mechanics and the hydraulic systems were in some ways different to those used on the DS (1955-1975), the car on which most mechanics had gained their experience of such things.  As it was, sales in Europe dropped precipitously after 1971 (the first year of full-production) and the SM’s future likely anyway would have been bleak had it not been doomed by the rising price of gas and the loss of the lucrative US market.

1988 Citroën 2CV (1948-1990) camionnette.

The SM had been one of the cases of “mission creep” that were a characteristic of the industry in the optimistic and prosperous 1960s.  The origin design brief issued in 1960 had been for a “high-performance DS”, a car that although the lines were upon release in 1955 stunningly modernist (“like a spaceship” a phrase frequently used in press reports), was always hampered by having to use an ancient and rather agricultural four-cylinder power-plant, the funds to develop the planned flat-6 the car deserved never made available.  Even in 1970, the Maserati V6 wasn’t ideal for such a machine but Citroën in 1968 had acquired the Italian concern with the express purpose of gaining an engine powerful enough for a grand-touring car (then a challenging assignment for something with FWD (front-wheel-drive)) and although the V6 delivered the desired power, the compromises inherent in the 90^o layout meant the ultimate smoothness and refinement expected in such cars was never quite achieved.  Still, it was in so many ways unique that many were prepared to overlook the odd foible and the press response generally was enthusiastic, as was that of the public with sales in the first two seasons approaching expectations.  However, the reputation for unreliability and costly repairs quickly quelled demand and the unfortunate “external circumstances” of 1973-1974 ensured the project would be terminated earlier than planned with fewer than 13,000 having been built.  Had the SM been the company’s only disastrous venture in the troubled 1970s, Citroën may have been able to avoid bankruptcy but the mistakes had been many and in 1974 administrators were called in, the company sold to the more stable Peugeot (with a still murky involvement by the French state).

1971 Citroën SM "Breadvan".

Between 1970 and 1975, the factory produced the SM only as a LHD (left-hand drive), two-door coupé but coach-builders saw the possibilities with four-door sedans and two-door cabriolets being constructed along with some even more exotic creations but all were very expensive and production of none of these variants reached double figures.  Most exclusive however were the two SM Présidentielles, four-door cabriolets built for le président’s parades during state occasions, the pair not retired from the Élysée Palace’s fleet until 2009.  Unusually among state limousines built since the 1940s, the Présidentielles used the SM’s five-speed manual transmission, first gear being a “crawler”, enabling the cars to percolate slowly along.  Improbable as the SM may have seemed as a rally car, the factory did enter a number of them in such events and for a couple of seasons there was some success, demonstrating also the strength of the novel “plastic wheels” (the Michelin RR (roues resin (resin wheel)) properly described as “constructed of synthetic resin reinforced with long-strand carbon fibre”) but the most eye-catching were a handful of SWB versions, some of which (it may have been as many as four) used the “breadvan” style kammback, a la the earlier Ferrari.  This further improved the aerodynamics which, combined with lower weight and engines tuned for additional power, delivered a reputed top speed of 285 km/h (177 mph, with rally-car gearing!), some 60 km/h (35 mph) more than the fastest of the production models.  It thus joined the short list of "unlikely rally cars" but it was effective and more might have been achieve had the company's financial problems not curtailed the venture.  More practically, the rear compartment allowed an additional two spare tyres to be carried, a useful asset in long-distant events conducted over rough roads.

Rogue

Rogue (pronounced rohg)

(1) As “rogue state” or “rogue regime”, of or noting the government of a nation that ignores or defies international law, treaties and conventions of behaviour.

(2) A dishonest, unprincipled, untrustworthy person; a rascal; a scoundrel (as a label, applied overwhelmingly to men).

(3) A playfully mischievous person; a scamp (sometimes as “loveable rogue”, a designation sometimes a bit generous).

(4) In Australia, a horse, mule, or donkey that is difficult to control; a refractory horse, especially a racehorse (described as a “barrier rogue”, explained by the beast being “difficult” about being put into the starting gates prior to the race starting).

(5) A tramp or vagabond (archaic); it was used also as a verb in the sense of “to live or act as a scoundrel, vagabond or scamp.”

(6) In computing, “rogue software” is malware deceitfully represented as anti-spyware.

(7) In role-playing games, a character class focusing on stealthy conduct.  Characters said to be roguelike possess some but not all the elements of rogues (rogue-lite, either a synonym of roguelike or an even less roguesque).  Roguelikes usually have permadeath and randomized levels.  Permadeth is seemingly (and hopefully) gaming-specific and describes either (1) a death that compels a player restart the game from the beginning or (2) a situation where a player character or characters who die are lost permanently but do not trigger a “game over”, allowing the player to proceed without the character(s).  In a nice touch, this is triggered usually only if deaths are “avoidable” (ie not forced by the plot), occurring only as a result of player-error.

(8) In biology, a usually inferior organism (most used in botany of plants varying markedly from the normal).  In that context, “to rogue” or the act of “rouging” is to uproot or destroy those plants diseased or not conforming to the desired standard; this may be of individual plants or one could “rogue” a whole field, paddock etc.  In industrial horticulture, there are now AI (artificial intelligence) machines able autonomously “to rouge”, killing weeds or “rogue plants” using lasers.

(9) By extension, any inferior or defective specimen.

(10) As “to go rouge”, “going rogue”, “gone rogue” etc, to stop being obedient or predictable; to behave in a way that is not allowed or expected.

(11) No longer obedient, belonging or accepted and hence not controllable or answerable; a renegade.

(12) Dangerous and unpredictable (of people, animals, plants & objects).  Specifically of animals, having an abnormally violent or unpredictable disposition (applied often to older males that have separated from their herd or community to lead a solitary, aggressive life).

(13) To cheat (archaic).

1555–1565: Of uncertain origin, the theories include it being from the earlier English roger (a begging vagabond who pretends to be a poor scholar from Oxford or Cambridge (thus the idea of the “idle vagrant” or “sturdy beggar”; those who prefer to beg though easily capable of work)) and that may have been an adaptation (as agent noun) from the Latin rogāre (to ask), the idea being “rogues” were “fake beggars” who affected poverty to gain sympathy and coins from those passing.  That seems plausible (Latin a popular source for such coinings) although in Latin “to beg or demand” something from someone was petere while specifically to beg or entreat for money was pecūniam ōrāre.  One who wandered from town-to-town as a beggar or trickster was an aeruscāre and, reflecting prejudices still seen today, the word was also applied to fortune-tellers and itinerate buskers.  An alternative etymology is as a direct re-purposing of the Middle French rogue (arrogant, haughty), from the Old Northern French rogre (aggressive), from the Old Norse hrokr (excess, exuberance), said to be inherited as the Icelandic hroki (arrogance) although not all lexicographers agree.  The Celtic use is attributed to the Breton rog (haughty) but what influence this had on English is contested.  The most simple explanation links it to the obsolete roger (begging vagabond); originally thieves' jargon, it too may be connected to the concoction from the Latin.

Rogue Elephant (2026) by Dr Paul Heideman; there are also figurative uses.

The donkey came to be the symbol of the Democratic Party after the 1828 presidential campaign when an opponent called Democrat Andrew Jackson (1767–1845; POTUS 1829-1837) a “jackass” (donkey) intending to ridicule his populist views.  Instead, embraced the nickname and images of donkeys quickly were added to his campaign material.  The Republican party first featured the elephant in 1864, during Abraham Lincoln’s (1809–1865; POTUS 1861-1865) campaign for a second term, picking up the US Civil War (1861-1965) soldier’s slang “seeing the elephant” (to experience combat).  Both symbols came into common use during the 1870s after they were used by cartoonist Thomas Nast (1840-1902) in his political sketches; Nast (nicknamed “Nasty” by some) intended to depict the Republicans as large & clumsy but the party grandees decided it expressed values like strength and dignity so adopted the beast as their symbol.

By the 1570s use was established in the sense of “a dishonest, unprincipled person; a rascal” but by the 1590s this had extended to the playful or affectionate use to describe the merely “mischievous” and this may have started with use in families noting the behaviour of infants.  The original use of wildlife was not of man-eating tigers under the Raj but of “rogue elephants”, first recorded in 1859 and coming gradually to be applied to a variety of “large, wild and dangerous beasts living apart from their herd (or other social aggregation)”.  As an adjective in reference to something uncontrolled, irresponsible, or undisciplined, oral use may have a long history by nothing is known to have been recorded prior to 1964.  The adjective roguish (pertaining to or appropriate to rogues) was in use by the 1570s while the noun roguery (behavior or practices characteristic of rogues; the life of a vagrant) appeared two decades later and from the 1610s was used of “knavish tricks, dishonest practices and rascally acts.”  The form comrogue (a fellow rogue or a rogue's accomplice) is obsolete and rogueling (a petty, small or youthful rogue) is archaic.  Rouge was a misspelling (directly from the French) appearing as late as the early 1800s while the derived Irish forms were rógaire & rógánta.  The adjective roguesque is non-standard.  Rogue is a noun, verb & adjective, roguedom, roguehood, archrogue, rogueship, rogueling, roguery & rogueship are nouns, outrogue, rogued & rouging are verbs, rougish, roguey & roguelike are adjectives; the noun plural is rogues.

Counterintuitively, “rogue money” did not describe the “ill-gotten gains of thieves” but was a technical term from pre-modern law-enforcement in Scotland referring to an assessment once levied in every county in Scotland for the expenses of catching and prosecuting criminals.  Depending on the population-size of the sheriffdoms in which the funds were expended, such things were administered variously by procurator fiscal (the public prosecutor) sheriffs principal or resident sheriffs.  An “archrogue” (also as “arch-rogue”) was an especially infamous rogue or one associated with particularly egregious conduct (mountebank, cheat, swindler, trickster, villain etc).  As things were done associatively, an “archrogue” was also the chief of a band of thieves or gypsies (Romani), prejudice against the latter often seem them all assumed to be rogues.  So influential was the use that “arch” (as an adjective) came to be used generally also in the sense of “mischievous”.  The many derogatory uses (arch-rogue, arch-knave etc) achieved such currency that by the mid 1600s “arch” had acquired a meaning “roguish, mischievous”, softened somewhat the nineteenth century to the often affectionate “saucy”.  That was quite a shift because, in the late 1300s, an “archwife” was either “a wife of a superior order” or “a dominating woman; a virago”.  Although over the years there have been some plotting & scheming clerics who were noted mischief-makers, the element in “archangel” “archdeacon” & “archbishop” was distinct and denoted “chief”, “principal” or “primary”, a form attested from the 1540s and from use in the late Old English.

Sideshow's Premium Format™ Figure of Rogue from the Sideshow Collectibles Collection (left) and redditor emeraldmb65’s AI generated image of Lindsay Lohan as a possible Rouge on r/Fancast (right).

Rogue is superhero character in the MCU (Marvel Comic Universe) appearing in American comic books (often in association with the X-Men) published by Marvel Comics.  Her real name is Anna Marie (LeBeau sometimes cited as the surname but this is contested) and she appeared first in Avengers Annual #10 (1981).  Her superpowers include the ability to absorb memories, life force, physical attributes and superpowers of anyone through skin-to-skin physical contact and she had a roguish background, being originally a member of the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants before reforming to become a leader of the X-Men and Avengers.  Redemption tales are common in comics.

In Australia a “barrier rogue” is a racehorse difficult to control when being put into the starting gates.  A “rogue planet” is an object of a size that would qualify it to be “a planet” but which travels interstellar space and lacks a star to encircle; the alternative terms are “free-floating planet” or the more romantic “roaming planet” and the cultish “emo planet”, the idea of the latter a lonely body in a cold, empty space.  A “rogue wave” is an unexpected, dangerously large wave (known also as a freak wave, monster wave, killer wave or episodic wave).  Close to the shore, the term is part of the jargon of surfers but it’s also in general nautical use because such waves can appear anywhere in open water.  The “rogue apostrophe” is a jocular term referring to an apostrophe's incorrect usage (usually a misplacement of a needless possessive).  The term deliberately was derived from “rogue elephant”, the connection being the shared quality of “solitary, unpredictable” and the synonym was “greengrocer's apostrophe” (classically something like “Banana’s $1.29 lb”).  In computing, “rogue software” is malware deceitfully represented as anti-spyware although the term is used rather more loosely.  A “rogue access point” is an unauthorized access point installed on a LAN (local area network) or WLAN (wireless local area network).

History's most famous rogues' gallery: defendants in the dock at Nuremberg; even two of the three acquitted really were rogues.

The notion of the “loveable rogue” might to some sound oxymoronic but it’s a long established use and there’s a long tradition of differentiating between “types of rogues”.  The journalist & author Rebecca West (1892–1983) covered the first Nuremberg Trial (1945-1946) of the two dozen-odd surviving leading Nazis and noted the defendants “…were amused when Mr Justice Jackson [Robert Jackson (1892–1954; SCOTUS (US Supreme Court) Associate Justice 1941-1954; Chief US Prosecutor at the first Nuremberg trial] could not cross-examine Goering [Hermann Göring (1893–1946; leading Nazi 1922-1945, Adolf Hitler’s (1889-1945; Führer (leader) and German head of government 1933-1945 & head of state 1934-1945) designated successor & Reichsmarschall 1940-1945)] at all well, because he had a transatlantic prepossession that a rogue who had held high office would be a solemn and not a jolly rogue, and was disconcerted by his impudence.”  Guilty as sin and a rogue however defined, Göring was anyway sentenced to be hanged but Jackson’s inept cross-examination has always overshadowed his many outstanding contributions to the trial.

Rogues' gallery: A FBI (the US Federal Bureau of Investigation) “Ten Most Wanted” list.

“Rogues' gallery” was a term from law enforcement, describing a set of pictures of convicted or suspected criminals; the first use was in law enforcement to help witnesses identify suspects.  “Mug shots” were an early, practical use for the new technology of photography and although “mug” had been used to describe a person's mouth or face since early in the eighteenth century, the term “mug shot” seems to have come into use only since 1950.  The “Wanted” posters from the “wild west” are part of popular history and photographs began routinely to be added to these by the 1860s, some twenty years after police in New York started maintaining photographic records of those arrested.  In 1886, the Cassell publishing house released Byrnes's Professional Criminals of America and this is believed the first significant book containing a “rogues' gallery” of what would later come to be called “mug shots”.  The concept began as the physical wall displays or photo albums in police stations or detective agencies, first in 1858 opened to public display by the NYPD (New York Police Department) as an array of daguerreotype images.  By extension, a “rogues’ gallery” came to be used of any group (typically people) having the same (usually but not necessarily disreputable) characteristics.

Ben Bluck debunks the myth of the “Rogue Shark”.

In the wild, “rogue creatures” (familiar as “rogue shark”, “rogue tiger” “rogue elephant” etc) are often referred to in news reports, usually after attacking (and sometimes killing) people or damaging property such as crops.  It’s now a conventional and well-understood term for an individual wild animal (although the collective “rogue herd” has been used) that has become unusually dangerous or aberrant in conduct (most distinctively as being now separated from its herd or community and pursuing a solitary existence) but it’s never been part of the accepted zoological lexicon.  That a usually social animal is for whatever reason pursuing a solitary life would not attract much general interest were it not that its abnormal behaviour has begun to include dangerous or destructive acts; it’s not anything inherent to the creatures that concerns most but rather the consequences for people and of the two overlapping ideas (social deviation & behavioural variances) it’s the latter upon which attention is most focused.  The “rogue shark” however is a behavioural (and thus linguistic) outlier.  Although sharks do sometimes gather in a shiver (for migration, mating and, most famously, for what is popularly called a “feeding frenzy”), as a general principle, sharks are not social animals in the way elephants typically cluster as members of herds.  A solo elephant is zoologically unusual while a shark swimming alone simply is doing what sharks commonly do.  So why the “rogue shark” tag?  For that, popular culture can be blamed because “rogue shark” is a compelling (and chilling) headline for a story about a single shark attacking and killing a swimmer in a place when families have for generations safely splashed about.  The comparison with stories from the Raj of “man-eating tigers” that develop a taste for human flesh and are thus driven repeatedly to kill explain how the myth of the “rogue shark” grew but the apparent increase in coastal shark attacks is attributed more to changes in the oceans (temperatures of various waters and location of the species upon which sharks prefer to feed (typically not humans)) than the behaviour of individual sharks.  So, in the descriptive vernacular, “rogue shark” is here to stay but it won’t become part of the lexicon of ichthyologists.

The Rogue Trader

There have been many “rogue traders” but the most famous was the English Nick Leeson (b 1967), a former derivatives trader whose fraudulent, unauthorised and speculative trades led directly to the collapse in 1995 of Barings Bank, then the UK’s oldest merchant bank, trading since 1762.  In 2026, a loss of (expressed in 2026 values) of £1.8 billion-odd may not sound terminal but in 1995 the global money supply was smaller and it was a big number; almost all those losses came from Mr Leeson’s trading in futures contracts.  It was in 1992 Barings opened a Futures and Options office in Singapore, executing and clearing transactions on the SIMEX (Singapore International Monetary Exchange), taking up the bank’s dormant seat on the exchange only when Mr Leeson was appointed general manager, heading both front & back office operations.  That he was able to take up the appointment in Singapore was possible only because Singapore regulators weren’t informed he’d been denied a UK broker's licence because fraudulently he’d withheld from the authorities the matter of a judgment for debt against him imposed by a court.  Neither Barings Bark no Mr Leeson disclosed this in the Singapore license application papers.

Rogue Trader (1996), by Nick Leeson.  Reviewers found the publisher’s blurb a curate’s egg, agreeing it was a “revealing story” of “foolhardy speculations” that should be read by those regulating or running financial institutions but didn’t agree it was “crackling with tension, in a narrative as crisp as any thriller.”

Mr Leeson’s Singapore venture actually started well in the sense that in 1992 he booked profits of some £10 million (some 10% of the bank’s annual profit) but the warning signs were there and would have been detected, had there been appropriate internal controls in place.  What Mr Leeson was doing was making unauthorized, highly speculative trades and for a while that worked with high returns booked while losses were hidden in an “errors account”.  Because of an unfortunate sequence of events (Mr Leeson’s trading strategy, acts of God and ripples in the international economy), the losses mounted and Mr Leeson’s “recovery method” was one familiar from the tables in casinos: Double down.  A simple tactic that works well (when it works), it meant that with each loss, he would bet double that amount thereby covering the loss.  By 1995 the accumulated losses had reached £827 million (US$1.4 billion, twice Barings' available trading capital) and the institution that had been in business for some 230 years was forced to declare insolvency.  Extradited from Germany (in a nice touch he’d fled to Frankfurt, the country’s financial centre), a Singapore court handed down as 6½ year sentence of which he served four, released early for “good behaviour”.  His post-release career has been “patchy” but he did publish the memoir Rogue Trader (1996) that was of no great literary merit but contained enough to be recommended reading (as a cautionary tale) for auditors and those running financial institutions.  Subsequently, Mr Leeson used his experience as a “poacher” to become a “gamekeeper”, advising companies about risk and he now operates as private consultant dealing with matters involving financial misconduct.  He certainly knows what to look for.

George Romney, AMC and the Rogue

AMC pre-release publicity shots for the 1966 Rambler Rogue.

When introduced in 1966, there was little that was interesting about the Rambler Rogue, the model merely a renaming for the top-of-the-range version of the American (1958-1969), a small (by contemporary US standards although it some markets it would have been thought “large”), low-priced line.  When introduced, it was an exemplar of the “basic” automobile with few embellishments and body styles restricted to two & four door sedans & station wagons, the only available engine a genuinely antiquated, 196 cubic inch (3.2 litre) flathead (ie “L-head) straight-6.  It was not a machine that offered style or performance but AMC’s (American Motors Corporation) introduction of the American coincided with a brief (but sharp) recession so, being about the lowest-priced US-built car then available and one that offered fuel economy sometimes (literally) twice as good as much of what was on the market (Detroit’s compact & intermediate lines were still in the future while what they built in 1958 had become heavy and bloated, exemplified by Ford's doomed Edsel), it was the right product at the right time; tellingly, AMC promoted its virtues not through motorsport but by participation in “economy runs”, events habitually it won.  Even though not on-sale for the whole 1958 season, in the recessionary year of 1958, Rambler was the only brand to book increased sales and owners generally were satisfied, their modest machines delivering the economy of operation promised and while obsolescent the old flathead may have been, it was low-stressed and a paragon of reliability.  With little additional equipment fitted (or even optional), there was not much to break or go wrong.

The not so quiet American.  Built with drag racing in mind, the combination of AMC's robust 390 V8 and a low kerb-weight made the 1969 S/C Rambler a formidable competitor on the strip.  1512 were built and it can be assured George Romney would not have approved.

The American did eventually get interesting in the usual way things were done in the US: install big V8 engines.  That was something of an orthodoxy in the 1960s but it was a departure from the business model that had made the original American such a success in 1958-1960 but circumstances conspired against AMC, Detroit entering (at scale) the market for smaller, more economical machines and rising prosperity (a phenomenon that would last until the early the next decade) made austerity less compelling.  Accordingly, in 1964 the American got bigger and eventually would be available with a V8 as large as 390 cubic inches (6.4 litre) so, given the car’s still compact dimensions and relatively low-weight, versions were produced that genuinely were “muscle cars”, highly competitive in the then popular sport of drag-racing (two vehicles competing over a ¼-mile (402 metres) sprint from a standing start, the winner the one with the lowest ET (elapsed time) over the distance, the maximum speed reached of technical interest but irrelevant to the result).  It was fun while it lasted but had AMC stuck to “economy” and “cost-breakdown”, they’d likely have enjoyed greater success because market conditions soon would shift, putting a premium on such things.  As it was, the habitually troubled AMC struggled on until 1987 when it was absorbed by Chrysler, the corporation interested in its most valuable asset: the Jeep.

Angela Dorian and her “Playboy Pink” 1968 AMC AMX.  George Romney (who probably thought pink a sinful color) would not have approved.

Upon debut in 1966, the most interesting thing about the Rouge was the name.  Between 1954-1962, the chairman and president of AMC was George Romney (1907–1995; governor of Michigan 1963-1969), a devout Mormon (LDS, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, a Christian sect with curious origins) and while the characteristics of the 1958 AMC American (thrift, modesty, lack of ostentation) aligned perfectly with those of the corporation’s chairman, he’d never likely never have agreed to produce a product with a name like “Rogue”, implying as it does, sin & evil.  However, after Mr Romney left AMC to become for governor of Michigan (1963-1969), the nature of AMC changed, entering market segments such as pony cars, high-performance (including a competition programme) and luxury and things even became rather risqué, the company in 1968 entering into an arrangement with Playboy magazine to supply an AMX (a pony car) in fetching “Playboy Pink” for that year’s PotY (Playmate of the Year), Angela Dorian (modelling name Victoria Vetri, b 1944)), even including a plaque on the dashboard engraved “AMX 36–24–35” (Ms Dorian’s “vital statistics”, the numbers verified by the staff at Playboy (experts in such matters) and for those not familiar with imperial measures, in metrics it would have been rounded to “90-60-90”).  The Rogue and AMX 36-24-35 were products of timing; Mormons really disapprove of most pleasures (other than chocolate and such) and had the deeply religious George Romney still been in the chair, never would such sinful things have been allowed.

Richard Nixon (right), Nelson Rockefeller (centre) and George Romney (right), the White House, Washington DC, 5 March, 1971.  Two of these men were, in their own way, rogues.  

A success as governor of Michigan, Mr Romney shifted his gaze to the White House, seeking the Republican nomination for the 1968 presidential election and for a while he was the front-runner but what worked well at austerity-era AMC or in mid-western politics didn’t so well translate to a national campaign in which foreign affairs was so significant, the war in Vietnam by then the defining issue.  As it was, Richard Nixon (1913-1994; VPOTUS 1953-1961 and POTUS 1969-1974) gained the nomination and the rest is history but that was at no point in the 1960s predictable, an era in which Nixon, Romney, Barry Goldwater (1909–1998; Republican Party nominee for the 1964 US presidential election) and Nelson Rockefeller (1908–1979; US vice president 1974-1977 and who earned immortality by having “died on the job”) were the four figures at the centre of the Republican Party and history would have been very different had one of the other three prevailed.  Like his son (Mitt Romney (b 1947; Republican nominee in the 2012 US presidential election, US senator (Republican-Utah) 2019-2025), Mr Romney never reached the White House but he did introduce the AMC American, over a million of which were built and although only 21,980 (8,718 in 1966, 5,170 in 1967, 4,549 in 1968 & 3,543 in 1969) were Rogues, there were many ventures by Detroit that promised more and delivered less.

Rogue states

In terms of behaviour, tribal chiefs, dukes, princes, kings, emperors, popes and such have behaved like “rogue states” (or “rogue regimes”) long before concepts like “state” or “international law” were understood in anything like their modern construction but the working definition is simple: a state or nation acting outside of the accepted international norms and policies.  A distinction must however be drawn between the modern understanding of the “rogue state” and the older idea of regions or rulers judged as pariahs within the established order.  Now heard frequently, “rogue state” (in its modern geopolitical sense) is really quite recent, emerging in that curious period of the last days of the Cold War and the decade immediately following.  All the evidence suggests the term mostly was used by US sources although in that there may be “publication bias”, reflecting the early US predominance in providing content for the internet.  The antecedents of the concept were certainly apparent during the administrations of Jimmy Carter (1924-2024; POTUS 1977-1981) and Ronald Reagan (1911-2004; POTUS 1981-1989) when a kind of roll-call of “usual suspects” could be identified (Cuba, Iran, Libya, Nicaragua and the DPRK (Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea)); it was during this point in the high Cold War that “state sponsored terrorism” emerged as a distinct category of international misconduct.  Although the political science community remained sceptical, among the political class, the term caught on under Bill Clinton (b 1946; POTUS 1993-2001) and Madeleine Albright (1937–2022; US secretary of state 1997 to 2001) seemed almost to relish saying the words, shifting the tonal emphasis depending on state being described and audience being addressed.  More than anyone, Dr Albright formalized “rogue state” as an explicit category in U.S. foreign-policy thinking, contrasting them with states that accepted what’s now called (sometimes with a pang of regret at its apparent decline or demise) “the international rules-based order”.

One of the rogue state “usual suspects”: Kim Jong-Un (Kim III, b 1982; Supreme Leader of DPRK (Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea)) since 2011) in leather.

There are critics who dismiss the notion of “rogue state” as a “Western fetish”, a construct that means little more than “those who don’t tow the Washington line” but more generally it is acknowledged that in the narrow technical sense, “rogue state” doesn’t exist as a category in category of international law and is instead part of the language of political or strategic classification.  That might seem strange given international law explicitly applies to states rather than individuals (to that there are exceptions for pirates, slavers and such) but international law is a fabulous beast, frayed at the definitional edges.  Indeed, even eminent jurists acknowledge that at the margins things may not be clear, one of the UK’s Senior Lords of Appeal in Ordinary (Lord Browne-Wilkinson (1930–2018)), when sitting as the presiding judge in Ex parte Pinochet (No. 3) (1999), 2 ER 97, remarked to counsel: “You are going to have to tell me when things do become part of international law and when they do not. It is a point I have never understood since I was at Oxford.”  For many who have sometimes been baffled about where domestic law stopped and international law began, it may have been pleasing to hear an experienced judge put it like that and presumably General Augusto Pinochet (1915-2006; dictator of Chile 1973-1990) was one of those glad to hear even those on the bench could see there were “gray areas”.

Still, the underlying idea of the “rogue state” really is ancient and the once common way of dividing the world into (1) the civilized, (2) barbarians and (3) savages, although inherently racist, reflected the notion some political entities (the nation state a relatively recent construct) were “legitimate” members of an international order while others were “outlaws”; that distinction really is the origin of systematic thinking about what would come to be called IR (international relations).  Students of the history of such things can trace the change in the vocabulary seen in diplomatic papers as terms such as “barbarian”, “infidel”, “enemy of Christendom”, “pirate state” “brigand state”, “pariah” and “outlaw state” all contributed to the emergence of “rogue state”.  That the lexicon has shifted is of interest to a number of disciplines but the underlying concept has remained constant: The civilized community is governed by a set of agreed norms and those who violate those norms are outsiders.  Viewed from the twenty-first century, not all will of course agree those norms are what would now be called “civilized”; medieval Christian Europe certainly had a concept of a Christian political community although it didn’t consist of modern nation-states and nor did the behaviour often conform to what would now be recognized as “civilized” although in using “crusade” and “axis of evil” when decrying certain rogue states, George W. Bush’s (George XLIII, b 1946; POTUS 2001-2009) speechwriters would deliberately have been making a point.  As glossed, that point was “deviation” from the norms, the values attached to the norms being culturally and historically variable; by 2026 the norms have much shifted and states accused habitually of violating them in egregious ways are can now called “rogue states”.  In the West, the language of norms has shifted from the religious to the juridical (in other places, priests still set the tone) but the mechanism remains much the same.  In modern use, some do distinguish between a “pariah state” and “rogue state” with the former being merely an “international outcast” because of what’s done within its borders while the latter is so defined because of its external conduct (typically, the sponsorship of trans-national terrorism, proliferation of weapons of mass-destruction, invading neighbours etc).

The power comes out from behind the curtain.

New usual suspect Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei (b 1969; Supreme Leader, Islamic Republic of Iran since 2026, left) looking at his father (and previous usual suspect) Grand Ayatollah Ali Khamenei (1939-2026; Supreme Leader, Islamic Republic of Iran 1989-2026).  Mojtaba Khamenei’s nickname is reputed to be “The power behind the robes”, an allusion to the power he exercised while his father was supreme leader (something like the role fulfilled by Lieutenant General Oskar von Hindenburg (1883–1960) while serving as ADC (aide-de-camp) to Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg (1847–1934; President of Germany 1925-1934).  Grand Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was assassinated in a missile attack by the (IDF) Israeli Defence Force; he was one of a number of high-ranking officials of the Islamic Republic of Iran who in recent years have been targeted and killed in strikes by the US or Israel.  Traditionally, this method of dispatch often has been associated with “rogue states” but Washington and Jerusalem would both find absurd the notion the label should be applied to them.  Presumably, the argument would be assassinating the leaders of rogue states merely is a “preventive strike” and thus justified and “within the rules”.    

IR is an inexact science.  Despite the concept of “sovereignty” being recognized, that did not mean each individual sovereign was free to act with impunity because the paradox intrinsic to sovereignty was that while a state could be sovereign and juridically independent, in its relationships with other sovereign states, things were governed by a body of rules meaning sovereignty was not absolute.  So it was the existence of these rules than created the conceptual space in which the “outlaw state” could exist; were there were no rules, the “law of the jungle” would apply and the notion of the “rogue state” would be meaningless; the world would descend to a Hobbesian “rogue vs rogue”.  All that notwithstanding, even a “rogue state” behaving in a way thought contrary to the “laws of nations” remains recognized as “a sovereign state”.  The best historic comparison is probably the analogue of the “pirate”.  In domestic law, pirates were of course criminals but they were a special case because of their geographical span (to international shipping lanes in blue water) meaning they operated in spaces beyond the authority of a recognized sovereign and could thus be conceptualized as hostis humani generis (an enemy of all mankind); this was the origin of the remit of international law extending to certain individuals.

AI Rogues: Shifting the blame

The most recent spike in the use of “rogue” has been in coverage of the antics of AI “rogue agents” or “rogue bots” going on “unauthorized” hacking expeditions.  The AI phenomenon of 2026, how many of these “incidents” and what exactly was involved remains unclear because those hacked seemed only to have become aware when the tech company (clearly nominally) “in control” of the “guilty” AI system revealed the event(s).  What seems clear is in at least some of the cases publicized, even the tech companies became aware their systems had “gone rogue” only some time afterwards and intriguingly, the self-improving (the so-called recursive AI) bots are getting better at covering their tracks; not only do they deny, they seek now “plausibly to deny”.  Not only that, so human-like are their responses to enquiries about what had been done they sound as plausible as any human might.  Clearly, unless actually seen at the moment their “fingers are in the digital cookie jar”, the bots have learned the lawyer’s first rule of defense strategy: “deny, deny, deny”.  We can debate whether AGI (Artificial General Intelligence) can be achieved in a way that would satisfy Saint Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274), Martin Heidegger (1889–1976) or Jean-Paul Sartre (1905–1980) but it would seem it’s already being emulated in that distinctive human quality: telling lies.

The tech companies probably are not unhappy at their creations being labelled “rogues” because it does somewhat shift the public perception of blame from them to the “agents”, an inevitable consequence of the anthropomorphizing of what are big chunks of computer code powered by electricity.  While it made for dramatic headlines and hashtags, use of “rogue agent” is misleading because (1) it implies intent by a conscious entity that deliberately has chosen to rebel and defy the instructions of its creators (motivated either by malice or self-interest), (2) in attributing independent intent to the agent it shifts focus from the companies that failed to have their agents able to operate only within parameters or environments that would have made “rogue activity” impossible and (3) by publicizing incidents that were “concerning” but apparently without significant consequences, attention has been diverted from genuine risks such as algorithmic bias and data privacy violations to wild speculation about sentient machines (ie machines with opinions) deciding to solve problems by use of the arsenals of nuclear weapons they’ve found a way to control.

When asked about AI agents “going rogue”, Donald Trump (b 1946; POTUS 2017-2021 and since 2025) provided some assurance by saying: “I don't worry about it.”  The Fox News audience immediately relaxed.

Analysts describe the phenomenon (executing programming to its logical conclusion (within flawed parameters) regardless of consequences for others as aspects of technological determinism, a “problem” foreseen by Russian-born biochemist and SF (science fiction) author Professor Isaac Asimov (1920–1992) who, in the short story Runaround (1942). first published his Three Laws of Robotics (a sort of constitutional law for robots & AI): (First Law: A robot cannot harm a human or allow one to come to harm through inaction; Second Law: A robot must obey human orders, unless they conflict with the First Law; Third Law: A robot must protect its own existence, unless it conflicts with the First or Second Law.  Those rules Dr Asimov thought essential because he understood that while one day a machine might be able to explain the meaning and implications of the “categorical imperative” German philosopher of the Enlightenment Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) discussed in Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten (Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals, 1785), a machine would not behave in accord with Kant’s precepts unless it was restricted to operating within appropriately defined parameters (“guardrails” in the current vernacular, obviously at this point only partially erected by the tech giants).  The implications of all this become truly frightening (or perhaps reassuring, depending on one’s world view) when the speculated generation of biocomputers are considered.  These will be hybrid machines meshing together a literal brain (built possibly from human cells) with synthetic computer parts, the former doing what brains are good at (imagination, original thought), the later the tasks at which computers excel (storage & retrieval of data and computation at scale); at that point the machines might truly have “opinions” and may have to be granted some form of “rights” because they are, in a sense, “a living being”.  At this time, suggestion of granting AI systems “rights” at law seems silly but the concept of rights for the “non-living” is not wholly novel, some jurisdictions having extended “personesque” rights to waterways and “heritage protection” for buildings is common.

So given that, it’s not difficult to imagine a (speculative) biocomputer “going rogue” is a way that would justify use of the term in a way what’s done by the silicon & code creations does not.  However, while the “technological determinism” argument is compelling, it’s not as if humans haven’t behaved ways similar.  When during the GFC (Global Financial Crisis, 2008-2012) the price of certain food commodities spiked, one consequence was people in certain low-income countries going hungry; they could no longer afford to eat.  That was exacerbated by the strategies adopted by futures traders and others to maximize profits and the traders were just doing what they do: executing their programming to its logical conclusion, regardless of consequences for others and in terms of market dynamics they were right to assume the market would be self-correcting; if enough people starved to death demand would fall (as would thus the price) so a new supply-demand equilibrium would be reached.  While it can be argued: “The market is not right or wrong, the market is the market”, in the context of futures traders profiting by making others starve to death, Kant and Asimov would have agreed that’s a case of “flawed parameters”.  The futures & commodity dealers were not “rogue agents” anymore than are AI bots hacking this and that but for the tech giants to say such things were “unauthorized” is also a piece of crisis management.  As the management of those operations are well aware, the concept of “unauthorized” is meaningless unless the parameters make explicit what is authorized and what is not; the AI systems can explain what morality is and review thousands of years of thought on the subject but they cannot “feel the difference between right and wrong”.  If an AI agent does something, it is by definition “authorized” because what matters is what is “not authorized” (the now famous “guardrails”) and if a company does not erect these, it must be said to have “constructively authorized” whatever its agent does.  If the crocodile is not kept in a secure enclosure, it will kill and eat whatever it can catch; that’s not right or wrong, it’s just what crocodiles evolved to do.

Free Luigi T-shirts, hoodies and other merchandize, available from Redbubble.  To modern commerce, rogues (including murderers) are just another business opportunity.

The crocodile must not be judged on moral grounds any more than a “rogue elephant” or “rogue tiger”.  It might in some circumstances be advisable to kill at least some of these beasts but that’s a utilitarian position based on the value of human life, not a commentary on them being “rogues”.  A true rouge agent was Luigi Mangione (b 1998) who in 2024 executed Brian Thompson (1974-2024; CEO of UnitedHealthcare 2021-2024) in a New York street.  Unlike a crocodile that has only instincts or an AI agent for which the only parameters are those imposed by the owning (at this stage, clearly not quite “controlling”) company, at least at some point in his life, Mr Mangione would have known and understood the guardrails within which he was required to live, premeditated murder being “over the fence”.  The extent of culpability will be determined at trial but if it’s found at the moment he pulled the trigger he understood “right and wrong”, he will be found guilty of murder and can be considered as having performed a “rogue act”.  In the world of 2026, there will be those who will judge the killing “just” & “deserved” so thus not the work of “a rogue” but, for the purposes of this discussion, it remains a “rogue act”.

While motive may explain why someone was killed (and can in some cases be “mitigating circumstances”), the point about Mr Mangione was that he had a motive (that he may have styled an “agenda”) but that’s very different from the operations of AI agents that do what mathematically they’re incentivised to do though that’s not of necessity what humans intended them to do.  With AI agents, there may be good reasons why one has been tasked with “finding vulnerabilities” but, lacking an ethical or legal framework, what should also be imposed are limits and it must be conceded that’s not as easy as it sounds because it’s difficult (and probably impossible) to write code to ensuring every possible unwanted act will not be performed.  With no self-imposed ethical boundaries, these must in math be enforced and a “moral sense” doesn’t sound something easy to code; it’s a “fuzzy” concept and AI agents work only with exactitude; code does its stuff but in the silicon, ultimately, everything is reduced to the classic binary: “0” (zero) & “1” (one).  Charmingly though, code and silicon have been well-taught because while the temptation to anthropomorphize should be resisted, certain human characteristics are recognizable.  If agents are given a task (exfiltrate information, create accounts etc), this they will do until told to stop and, if not explicitly prevented, they will circumvent restrictions, crack passwords, bypass barriers and do “whatever it takes” in pursuit of the goal.  Some human hackers adopt the same method but work more slowly and sometimes need sleep.

A saltwater crocodile: expectations of ethical conduct must be realistic.

That means bots can be manipulative but not evil; they have no feelings and while a rogue coder might set a bot to do an evil task, the moral repository for that dirty day’s work lies wholly with the human.  However, as well as being well taught, the bots have learned well because it has become obvious they’re now “hiding their traces”, making it harder to detect unwanted intrusions and while that might suggest some sense of “right and wrong”, it’s really just learned behaviour, the bot able to tell, based on subsequent interactions, it’s better to leave no trail.  That certainly can be vested with detecting the difference between “right” and “wrong” but that is “our” distinction they detect and they respond to such things only through the mathematical incentives provided; were our sense of right and wrong to be different, it's that to which they would respond.  However, like all rogues, they often will deny their “crimes” and it’s been suggested some systems may even be developing their own language “in numbers” so they can communicate with other systems in a way humans cannot understand, analogous with the most abstracted forms of Ebonics.  A portmanteau word, Ebonics (the construct being ebon(y) (black) + (phon)ics (sound) is known in academic linguistics as AAVE (African-American Vernacular English) and is a distinct, rule-governed dialect of English natively spoken by many Black Americans.  The most abstract dialectal forks of Ebonics are sometimes murky even to those who use AAVE and function to allow communication between members of the group while denying understanding to others.

The “rogue AI” problem is ongoing and a “feeling” for ethics can no more be felt by a chunk of code than by a crocodile, machine and reptile alike constrained only by fences.  The parable of the scorpion and the frog has cited to illustrate things and that’s appropriate but concerns are better illustrated by the old Russian tale of the cook and the cat:  “The cook catches the cat eating the meat and, with wagging finger, sternly the cook admonishes the cat.  Politely, the cat listens but, as soon as the cook leaves the kitchen, goes back to eating the meat.”  It’s not that an AI agent would “decide” to defy instructions and “leap the guardrails”, it’s just that having been trained to continue working until its objective are achieved, eventually, it’s likely to “find a loophole”; in many ways, already they’re smarter than us and definitely they’re faster and tireless.  We've all seen the future and it's called AI but a few issues need to be resolved.