Abstract
Europe has recently taken the path of regulating artificial intelligence (AI). This is a complex task, in which it is crucial to understand what the purposes of regulation are. In this perspective, it is not enough to identify and set ethical guidelines and legal norms. It is also important to envisage the legal principles that might steer the regulation of AI, which is aimed to reconcile technological innovation, economic development and user trust. Therefore, it may be useful to consider whether some principles may emerge from existing legislation in the AI sector. To this aim, we review the work of the Expert Group on Product Liability in the field of AI and Emerging Technologies (2019) as a case study. We show how their work has started to lay the basis for a set of legal principles for AI liability regime. An initial and open list of legal principles can serve as a benchmark for future work on a principles-based AI regulation.
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Notes
- 1.
The interplay between trust and distrust is referred to and largely analysed in the literature on trust. See, for instance, Feldman (2018).
- 2.
In this regard, it is worth noting the work of the Ad hoc Committee on Artificial Intelligence (Towards AI Regulation, 2021), which assesses the impact of AI on ethical principles, human rights, the rule of law and democracy, and examines key values, rights and principles deriving – in a bottom-up perspective – from sectorial approaches and ethical guidelines; and – in a top-down perspective – from human rights, democracy and the rule of law requirements. It is also worth mentioning the European Declaration on Digital Rights and Principles for the Digital Decade (2022). See also Hacker (2020); Bernitz et al. (2020), notably, Chap. 18; Fjeld et al. (2020). On constitutional and human rights considerations on AI see recently Barfield – Pagallo (2020).
- 3.
An approach to the development of EU financial services regulation https://ec.europa.eu/info/business-economy-euro/banking-and-finance/regulatory-process-financial-services/regulatory-process-financial-services_en
- 4.
- 5.
See in this respect Mazzini (2019), who stated significantly (note 7, p. 3): “Another very relevant and perhaps more complicated question to address for policymakers in the context of AI governance is the future oriented question of identifying the direction we want to move towards as a society.” In this regard, see also crucially Floridi (2020). In the field of digital technologies, as has been remarked, “the ‘race to AI’ is also bringing forth a ‘race to AI regulation’” (Smuha, 2019, 4).
- 6.
See in this regard remarks in the Expert Group Report (2019, 56): “It is also more efficient to hold all potential injurers liable in such cases, as the different providers are in the best position to control risks of interaction and interoperability and to agree upfront on the distribution of the costs of accidents”.
- 7.
Control is a key term for the Expert Group, that has been defined as follows: “‘Control’ is a variable concept, though, ranging from merely activating the technology, thus exposing third parties to its potential risks, to determining the output or result (…), and may include further steps in between, which affect the details of the operation from start to stop” (Report, 2019, 41).
- 8.
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Massimo Durante’s research was supported by a fellowship funded by Google EU.
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Durante, M., Floridi, L. (2022). A Legal Principles-Based Framework for AI Liability Regulation. In: Mökander, J., Ziosi, M. (eds) The 2021 Yearbook of the Digital Ethics Lab. Digital Ethics Lab Yearbook. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-09846-8_7
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