Diving into the realm of AI, we confront complex challenges and evolving legal landscapes. As AI systems embed into daily life, questions of liability, regulation, and ethics emerge. Explore with us as we navigate the autonomous nature of AI, the groundbreaking EU AI Act, varied regulations in the Asia-Pacific, and ongoing legal cases.
1. Challenges caused by the use of AI systems
As AI systems further develop, their daily use raises many legal issues. In the future, it will be a major challenge to consider how AI systems should be regulated in order to prevent damage and make operators liable. One big challenge is, that AI systems are able to learn by themselves so their behaviour is not really foreseeable. As many people are involved in the process of programming an AI system it is easy to push the blame for a tort to another person.
2. The EU AI Act and the AI liability directive
So far, the European Union is the pioneer in regulating AI systems. The EU AI Act will be passed at the turn of the year 2023/2024. The AI Act is the world’s first comprehensive AI law. It states for example, that the operator of the AI system is the only liable person as he controls the AI system. Furthermore, the European Commission published a proposal for a AI liability directive. The Commission proposes to modernise the EU liability framework to introduce new rules specific to damages caused by AI systems. The new rules intend to ensure that persons harmed by AI systems enjoy the same level of protection as persons harmed by other technologies in the European Union.
3. Latest AI legislation in the Asia-Pacific region
Most countries in the Asia-Pacific region did not issue any specific AI legislation yet. Every country has a different approach to regulate AI systems. Some countries combine sector law and existing law, other countries issue new laws. Overall, the most important topics that need to be ruled are private data protection and ethnical privacy. Malysia is one of the countries using existing laws to regulate AI systems. The ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation (MoSTI) announced that it plans to develop a legal framework to regulate the use of AI systems. Countries like Australia and Japan have not yet issued any AI legislation. Countries such as South Korea, Thailand, Taiwan and China are in the process of drafting AI legislation, which in the case of South Korea is similar to European legislation.
4. Current law cases concerning AI systems
The only ongoing law cases concerning AI systems are in the United States and the European Union. For example, in the United States the plaintiff filed a defamation lawsuit against OpenAI in June 2023. He claimed that ChatGPT generated a complete fabrication about him that was libellous and harmful to his reputation. In the European Union there was a defamation lawsuit against chatbots, a software application that aims to mimic human conversation through text or voice interactions.
In the Asia-Pacific region, there are no legal cases to date in which AI has caused damage.
5. Outlook into the future
The European Union is still taking the lead concerning AI legislation. In the future the countries in the Asia-Pacific region will partly follow the European legislation and develop their own standards and laws regarding AI systems. Most important is, that all legislators strike the balance between the innovation of AI systems and the protection of people.
Source: Wong & Partners 2023