Responsibility for AI

Abstract

In this chapter, Turner describes how various legal mechanisms could be used to determine who or what is responsible for AI when it causes harm or creates something of value. Existing regimes which could be applied to AI include: negligence, product liability, vicarious liability, contracts, insurance, no-fault compensation schemes, as well as the criminal law. However, owing to AI’s independent agency and ability to act in an unforeseeable fashion, there are difficulties in applying each set of rules. AI can also create new content, from music and art to industrial design. Turner shows that running through each legal area surveyed is a tension as to whether AI systems should be treated as objects, or as subjects, as things or as persons.