Civil Liability for Damage Caused Due to the Use of Artificial Intelligence: an Unpopular Study of a Popular Topic

Abstract

This article examines contemporary issues of civil liability for damages caused by artificial intelligence systems. The purpose of the article is to provide a comprehensive analysis of current issues regarding civil liability for damages caused by AI, as well as to formulate proposals for addressing these issues in Ukrainian legal practice. It has been established that the issue of liability for damages caused by AI is highly complex, due to both the technical characteristics of AI (the unpredictability of generated results, the opacity of the request-processing process, the ability to self-learn, etc.) and economic factors. The article analyzes the current regulatory framework for such relationships in the European Union and the United States of America. It concludes that Ukrainian civil law does not currently need to introduce a special legal regime for liability for damages caused by the use of artificial intelligence. The priority is to: (a) implement the provisions of EU Directive 2024/2853 on liability for defective products into domestic legislation; (b) adapt the traditional concept of general tort to modern realities, in which—due to the widespread use of AI—establishing and proving fault and a causal link between a particular person’s actions and the resulting damage becomes an extremely complex task; (c) adapting procedural mechanisms for the admission of evidence to the specific characteristics of modern AI systems.