The Extent of the Civil Liability of Artificial Intelligence Technologies for the Infection and the Spread of Covid-19

Abstract

With the on-going situation of the global pandemic coronavirus (COVID-19) and the implementation of social-distancing measures by the higher authorities in countries around the world, the use of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies increased especially with the rapid technological developments. AI are not harm free, thus various questions were raised by legal practitioners. The first question raised was regarding the classification of the legal status of AI bearing in mind that national and international legislations did not consider AI as a subject of law yet. The second question raised was who shall be legally liable in case harm was caused by AI technology for instance an injury caused by a robot to individuals. Hence, this paper will shed light on the concept of AI by providing the definition of AI and exploring its legal status in addition to analysing the basis and the rules of liability and the defences to avoid liability for injury resulted by AI technologies.