The Liability of Artificial Intelligence's Moral Dilemma

Abstract

Background: Artificial Intelligence (AI) represents the fundamentals of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Its advancement in technology has brought benefit to mankind over the years, which helps to amplify our daily lives in numerous ways. Among the technologies that have been innovated utilizing AI are Artificial Intelligence Lawyers (AI Lawyers), autonomous vehicles, AI judges, augmented drafting services and delivery drones. Although AI has brought many advancements in our lives, concerns are raised with regards to the moral implication of AI. This study aims to examine the situation wherein tools which incorporate AI would have to face a moral dilemma situation, or situations where AI had acted beyond what was instructed or programmed by the manufacturers. Thus, this work discusses whether the torts theory of liability on negligence is applicable in such a context. Methods: The methodology involved a doctrinal research in analysing the legal rules and existing studies in relation to AI and the negligence principle to develop a critical analysis of the literature. Besides, this research finds the application of principle negligence adopted in other countries, particularly in the United States, since it has employed AI much earlier compared to other countries. Results: The findings suggest that the question of the liability of AI is still at its infancy, as policy makers or regulators have yet to decide the liability of AI. However, the findings also suggest that theories of liabilities such as product liability and strict liability are possible to adduce liability on AI, so long as AI could be defined as a product. The research limitation is the scarcity amount of related studies available in the literature. The motivation of this work is in the importance to determine whether advanced AI may be liable for ‘moral decisions’ that cause damage to the victim under the principle of negligence.