Autonomous Systems and Wrongdoing: Revisiting the Meaning of Wrongdoing

Doubts have been raised regarding the appropriate framework to address civil or criminal liability for damage or wrongful results caused by autonomous systems. These doubts present an opportunity to revisit several customary prerequisites for imposing liability, notably the significance of wrongdoing in general, which is a key element for both non-contractual liability and criminal liability. In dilemmatic situations (i.e. life versus life cases) arising from autonomous systems, many of the potential answers to ascertain potential criminal liability (of the producer, programmer, or operator) seem to depend on a clear distinction between unlawfulness and culpability. This paper reviews traditional and recent proposals to explain the concept of wrongdoing and discusses whether such proposals in general would help to resolve liability claims for damage or wrongful results caused by autonomous systems. Regarding specifically criminal liability, it is emphasized that Pawlick’s proposal of a citizen’s criminal law, despite its added value and the author’s intention to simplify the general theory of crime, nevertheless raises identical or greater difficulties than traditional conceptions of what is criminal wrongdoing in this connection. Therefore, the paper concludes that the answers to dilemmatic situations arising from autonomous systems must be found in other conceptions of criminal wrongdoing, as Pawlick’s proposal would fare no better (in this respect) than the traditional ones.