Abstract
Who is responsible when an AI machine causes something to go wrong? Or is there a gap in the ascription of responsibility? Answers range from claiming there is a unique responsibility gap, several different responsibility gaps, or no gap at all. In a nutshell, the problem is as follows: on the one hand, it seems fitting to hold someone responsible for a wrong caused by an AI machine; on the other hand, there seems to be no fitting bearer of responsibility for this wrong. In this article, we focus on a particular (aspect of the) AI responsibility gap: it seems fitting that someone should bear the legal consequences in scenarios involving AI machines with design defects; however, there seems to be no such fitting bearer. We approach this problem from the legal perspective, and suggest vicarious liability of AI manufacturers as a solution to this problem. Our proposal comes in two variants: the first one has a narrower range of application, but can be easily integrated in current legal frameworks; the second one requires a revision of current legal frameworks, but has a wider range of application. The latter variant employs a broadened account of vicarious liability. We emphasise strengths of the two variants and finally highlight how vicarious liability offers important insights for addressing a moral AI responsibility gap.
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Notes
We will mainly use the term AI machine in a very broad sense, meaning any machine equipped with a form of artificial intelligence whose behaviour may have normatively relevant consequences. In the following, we will encounter examples involving specific kinds of machines, such as robots and autonomous vehicles. While not everything that is said about one of these kinds automatically carries over to the others, much of the discussion that is relevant to AI responsibility would be lost if we were to exclude works that focus on robot responsibility or on specific kinds of AI machines from our analysis.
The philosophical debate on fittingness is vast (see, e.g., the survey in Howard, 2018). Nevertheless, for the purposes of the present work it is not necessary to assume a specific view; it is sufficient to have a simple understanding of this notion as an element introducing a normative perspective.
Since AI machines do not usually have decisional autonomy, one might instead say that there is ultimately human-AI collaboration with respect to decisions: at least at the current stage of AI technology, humans are always causally responsible for how a machine is initially programmed.
For an opposite view on the moral responsibility of robots, see Sullins (2011).
To give a few examples, in Bazley v Curry 2 SCR 534 (1999), Lister v Hesley Hall Ltd 1 AC 215 (2002), and Majrowski v Guy’s and St. Thomas’s NHS Trust UKHL 34 (2006), an employer was held vicariously responsible for the intentional wrongdoing of their employees (abuse, harassment, sexual misconduct).
We do not discuss permissions since, in our view, ascriptions of vicarious liability primarily deal with cases of norm violation.
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Acknowledgements
Daniela Glavaničová was supported by the Slovak Research and Development Agency under the contract no. APVV-170057 and VEGA 1/0197/20. Matteo Pascucci was supported by the Štefan Schwarz Fund for the project "A fine-grained analysis of Hohfeldian concepts” (2020-2023) and VEGA 2/0125/22. The authors thank John Hyman, Maximilian Kiener, Alessandra Marra and her students at LMU Munich for thoughtful discussions of the paper’s central ideas.
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Glavaničová, D., Pascucci, M. Vicarious liability: a solution to a problem of AI responsibility?. Ethics Inf Technol 24, 28 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10676-022-09657-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10676-022-09657-8