Who Pays for AI Injury?

Oxford Business Law Blog, May 4, 2020

4 Pages Posted: 26 May 2020 Last revised: 24 Feb 2021

Date Written: May 4, 2020

Abstract

Algorithms hurt people everyday. Are such injuries just regrettable externalities of technological progress that victims should be left to bear? Or should someone else be civilly or criminally liable for the injury? The law does not always provide an answer, which can leave innocent victims holding the bag. Traditional doctrines condition liability on faulty conduct from a human agent, but we are now entering a phase of technological and economic progress where the people involved might be doing everything they should, and it is the machines that are misbehaving. The trouble is that machines are not cognizable legal actors.

This short paper turns to corporate law for a solution. While algorithms are not legal actors, the corporations that develop and run them are. The law should recognize that corporations act through the algorithms over which they have beneficial control. Then the social control that the law exercises over corporate harm would come to bear on algorithmic harm too.

Keywords: Artificial Intelligence, AI, Algorithmic Harms, Corporate Law, Respondeat Superior, Product Liability, Consumer Protection, Tort Law, Criminal Law, Philosophy of Law, Jurisprudence

Suggested Citation

Diamantis, Mihailis, Who Pays for AI Injury? (May 4, 2020). Oxford Business Law Blog, May 4, 2020, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3592546 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3592546

Mihailis Diamantis (Contact Author)

University of Iowa - College of Law ( email )

Boyd Law Building, rm. 442
Iowa City, IA 52242
United States

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