The revision of the product liability directive: a key piece in the artificial intelligence liability puzzle

Abstract

AbstractThe revision of the Product Liability Directive plays a key role in the policy strategy of resolving what might be called the artificial intelligence liability jigsaw puzzle. By accommodating the Product Liability Directive to the challenges of artificial intelligence systems, several policy quandaries have been aptly addressed and frontally solved. Two bridges have been built. First, a bridge between the Artificial Intelligence Act and the national fault-based liability rules (draft Artificial Intelligence Liability Directive), and secondly, a complementariness bridge between the Product Liability Directive and fault-based liability rules (draft Revised Product Liability Directive). The second interplay largely revolves around a generously expanded and invigorated product liability regime. These policy choices do not ensure that the jigsaw puzzle produces a fully harmonised image of liability in respect of artificial intelligence, insofar as the system of liability is still partially dependent upon national laws on fault-based liability. Nonetheless, the new measures signal in a pragmatic way a desirable and expected trend towards an increasing unification of liability regimes.