Key takeaways of the Commission proposal for a “Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council laying down harmonized rules on artificial intelligence and amending certain Union acts”
Tag Archives: AI
AI Liability Directive: Key Takeaways
We have already illustrated the new proposed rules for a product liability directive on this blog. We now analyze the proposal for a AI Liability Directive, which offers interesting insights on how liability rules will be tweaked when Artificial Intelligence is concerned. In fact, as noted by the Commission’s explanatory memorandum to the AI Liability Directive, “the ‘black box’ effect can make it difficult for the victim to prove fault and causality and there may be uncertainty as to how the courts will interpret and apply existing national liability rules in cases involving AI“.
These slides may help understanding the AI Liability Directive. If you have questions or doubts, do not hesitate to reach out to us.
EU Policies for the Digital Age
Confused about the Digital Service Act, the Digital Markets Act, the Data Governance Act and the Data Act? My recent article tries to make sense of all of them:
The article also explains that the European Union has a strong vision on principles and policies for the digital age and aspires to a worldwide leadership role in the governance of digital phenomena.
Paola Sangiovanni to Speak on Artificial Intelligence
Our firm will be attending the EMEA Regional Meeting of Ally Law in Malta next week and on Friday November 15th I will be speaking at a panel discussion titled “Keeping an Eye on AI: Ethical and Regulatory Considerations.”
Artificial intelligence is a hot topic, also in the med-tech field, and poses exciting legal, ethical and regulatory questions. I am sure this will be an interesting opportunity to discuss them with legal and technical experts.
Artificial intelligence and robotics: a report reflects on legal issues
With its report issued on May 31, 2016 by the European Parliament (“Report”), the European Union has stepped into the debate on how to deal with artificial intelligence and robotics (“AI&R”). The ultimate goal of the European Parliament is to set forth a common legal framework that may avoid discrepancies arising from different national legislations, which would otherwise create obstacles to an effective development of robotics.
The Report introduces ethical principles concerning the development of AI&R for civil use and proposes a Charter on Robotics, composed by a Code of Ethical Conduct for Robotics Engineers, a Code for Research Ethics Committees and Licenses for Designers and Users.
Furthermore, the Report suggests the creation of a European Agency for AI&R, having an adequate budget, which would be able to generate the necessary technical, ethical and regulatory expertise. Such agency would monitor research and development activities in order to be able to recommend regulatory standards and address customer protection issues in these fields.
The Report, which recommends to the Commission to prepare a proposal of directive on civil law rules on robotics, illustrates many of the issues that society could face in a few decades regarding the relationship between humans and humanoids. In fact, a wide range of robots already can, and could even more in the future, affect people’s life in their roles as care robots, medical robots, human repair and enhancement robots, doctor training robots, and so on.
A further development that may be concerning for lawyers is connected to the announcement, a few days ago, by the University College London that a computer has been able to predict, through a machine-learning algorithm, the decisions by the European Court of Human Rights with a 79% accuracy. Will this result in a more automatic and predictable application of the law?
In order to secure the highest degree of professional competence possible, as well as to protect patients’ health when AI&R is used in the health field, the Report recommends to strengthen legal and regulatory measures such as data protection and data ownership, standardization, safety and security.
One concern arising from the Report is civil liability arising from the use of robots. Should the owner be liable for damages caused by a smart robot? In fact, in the future, more and more robots will be able to make “smart” autonomous decisions and interact with third parties independently, as well as cause damages by their own. Should such damages be the responsibility of the person who designed, trained or operated the robot?
Some argue in favor of a strict liability rule, “thus requiring only proof that damage has occurred and the establishment of a causal link between the harmful behavior of the robot and the damage suffered by the injured party”.
The Report goes even further by asking the Commission to create a compulsory insurance scheme for owners and producers to cover damage potentially caused by robots and a compensation fund guaranteeing compensation for damages, but also allowing investments and donations in favor of robots.
Exciting times lay ahead of us. It remains to be seen if the current legal principles will be sufficient or if new ones will actually be necessary.
Law, Health & Technology 