AI: Legal Issues Arising from the Development of Autonomous Vehicle Technology

Sooji Lee, MJLST Staffer

Have you ever heard of the “Google deep mind challenge match?” AlphaGo, the artificial intelligence (hereinafter “AI”) created by Google, had a Go game match with Lee Sedol, 18-time world champion of Go in 2016. Go game is THE most complicated human made game that has more variable moves than you can ever imagine – more than a billion more variables than a chess game. People who knew enough about the complexity of Go game did not believe that it was possible for AI to calculate all these variables to defeat the world champion, who depended more on his guts and experiences. AlphaGo, however, defeated Mr. Lee by five to one leaving the whole world amazed.

Another use of AI is to make autonomous vehicles (hereinafter “AV”), to achieve mankind’s long-time dream: driving a car without driving. Now, almost every automobile manufacturer including GM, Toyota, Tesla and others, who each have enough capital to reinvest their money on the new technology, aggressively invest in AV technologies. As a natural consequence of increasing interest on AV technology, vehicle manufacturers have performed several driving tests on AVs. Many legal issues arose as a result of the trials. During my summer in Korea, I had a chance to research legal issues for an intellectual property infringement lawsuit regarding AV technology between two automobile manufacturers.

For a normal vehicle, a natural person is responsible if there is an accident. But who should be liable when an AV malfunctions? The owner of the vehicle, the manufacturer of the vehicle, or the entity who developed the vehicle’s software? This is one of the hardest questions that arises from the commercialization of AV. I personally think that the liability could be imposed on any of the various entities depending on different scenarios. If the accident happened because of the malfunctioning of the vehicle’s AI system, the software provider should be liable. If the accident occurred because the vehicle itself malfunctioned, the manufacturer should be held liable. But if the accident occurred because the owner of the vehicle poorly managed his/her car, the owner should be held liable. To sum up, there is no one-size fits all solution to who should be held liable. Courts should consider the causal sequence of the accident when determining liability.

Also, the legislative body must take data privacy into consideration when enacting statutes governing AVs. There are tons of cars on the road. Drivers should interact with other drivers to safely get to their destination. Therefore, AVs should share locations and current situations to interact well with other AVs. This means that a single entity should collect each AVs information and calculate it to prevent accidents or to effectively manage traffic. Nowadays, almost every driver is using navigation. This means that people must provide their location to a service provider, such as Google maps. Some may argue that service providers like Google maps already serve as a collector of vehicle information. But there are many navigation services. Since all AVs must interact with each other, centralizing the data with one service provider is wise. While centralizing the data and limiting consumer choice to one service provider is advisable, the danger of a data breach would be heightened should one service provider be selected. This is an important and pressing concern for legislatures considering enacting legislation regarding centralizing AV data with one service provider.

Therefore, enacting an effective, smart, and predictive statute is important to prevent potential problems. Notwithstanding its complexity, many states in the U.S. take a positive stance toward the commercialization of AV since the industry could become profitable. According to statistics from National Conference of State Legislatures, 33 states have introduced legislation and 10 states have issued executive orders related to AV technology. For example, Florida’s 2016 legislation expands allowed operation of autonomous vehicles on public roads. Also, Arizona’s Governor issued an executive order which encouraged the development of relevant technologies. With this steps, development of a legal shield is possible someday.