Automated vehicles – is a dilution of human responsibility the answer?

Abstract

AI-driven vehicles and other artificial intelligence (AI) systems may cause serious injury to people while operating independently. Besides vehicles progress may be seen in the use of autonomous weapon systems, AI in medicine and care robots. It seems that soon AI systems will increasingly be making decisions previously made by humans. A Swedish inquiry argued that existing criminal law rules on responsibility are not suitable for automated vehicles (when in the self-driving mode). The human in the driver’s seat would not be blamed if an accident occurs. Conversely, the Proposal for a Regulation on Artificial Intelligence places an emphasis on oversight by human beings to an extent. A battle for the hearts and minds of people might be underway here. It seems that further exploration of the matter is warranted, especially through the criminal law lens—are proposals where the human user is absolved of blame viable at this point in time?