Criminal liability of autonomous agents: From the unthinkable to the plausible

Abstract

The evolution of information technologies have brought us to a point where we are confronted with the existence of agents - computational entities-which are able to act autonomously with little or no human intervention. And their behavior can damage individual or collective interests that are protected by criminal law. Based on the analysis of different models of criminal responsibility of legal persons - which constituted an interesting advance in the criminal law in relation to what was hitherto traditionally accepted -, we will appraise whether the necessary legal elements to have direct criminal liability of artificial entities are present.