Policy Brief No. 177 — July 2023 - Addressing the Liability Gap in AI Accidents

→ The European Commission has proposed Just a year earlier in India, a worker in an auto parts changes to address the challenges, including factory was fatally injured by the robotic arm of a measures to alleviate the evidentiary burden machine when he mistakenly walked into the radius on claimants by decreasing the burden of one of the machine’s sensors. [...] Here, the AI the breach of a duty of care by the defendant and 4 system is akin to a tool used by a doctor. [...] While this feature can increase certainty 4 Ibid, art 4(1): “Rebuttable presumption of a causal link in the case of and therefore enhance safety, it also obscures the fault: Subject to the requirements laid down in this Article, national courts shall presume, for the purposes of applying liability rules to a claim for damages, the causal link between the fault of the defendant and the output produ. [...] By Liability Directive also eases the evidentiary making disclosure easier, it is possible to burden on the plaintiff and reduces the peek under the hood of AI systems and offer information asymmetry between the plaintiff explanations for the system’s decisions. [...] for designers and manufacturers to internalize the The problem refers to the diffusion of responsibility costs of innovation through the adoption of safety among multiple actors (hardware manufacturers, measures.