[Webinar] Civil and Criminal Liability arising from Robotics and AI

The ever-increasing presence of Robotic and Artificial Intelligence (RAI) systems in our daily lives promises huge benefits. But there is also the risk that the operation of those systems may cause — intentionally or otherwise — serious harm or even loss of life. Trying to apply criminal law in such instances can raise difficult questions, including: 

• Is it right to impose criminal liability and penalties at all? Or are regulatory sanctions preferable? 
• What role did the human user in charge of the system play? What if there is no human user at all? 
• If the human user didn’t cause the harm, why did the RAI system act as it did? 
• Should the manufacturer of the RAI system be held responsible in such cases? Or the programmer of its software code? Or even the RAI system itself? 
• How do criminal ‘fault’ concepts such as ‘intention’ or ‘negligence’ operate in such cases? 

In situations where no person can be said to have intended the harm, alternative approaches to imposing criminal liability may be needed, including: (a) the possibility of recognising legal personhood for AI systems; (b) targeting negligence in an AI system’s creation; and/or (c) imposing duties to take measures to avoid harm.

The speakers in this webinar, Mr Josh Lee, Associate Professor Chen Siyuan and Ms Beverly Lim, together with Mr Gilbert Leong, as moderator, hope to generate some debate on these issues that would complement and contribute to the development of Singapore law that fosters socially and economically beneficial development and use of robotic and AI-driven technologies.