Prof. Ruffolo’s speech at the seminar on "Artificial Intelligence and the law: the case of self-driving cars"

The volume “Intelligenza Artificiale e responsabilità” (“Artificial Intelligence and liability”), authored and edited by Prof. Ruffolo, published by Giuffrè, is going to be presented during the seminar that will be held on April 10, 2019 at the School of Engineering of the University of Bologna. Prof. Ruffolo will take part in the seminar, with a speech on liability related to the creation, manufacturing and circulation of automated vehicles.

Self-driving (and, in the future, driverless) cars constitute the main result of the implementation of forms of Artificial Intelligence in the automotive fields. Such an innovation is already revolutionizing the transportation industry, but gives rise to new possibilities of harmful events caused by A.I.-operated systems: which will be the liability for the inventor and manufacturer of the new “smart vehicles”, and which the liability for their “driver” and/or owner? These topics will be dealt with by Prof. Ruffolo (who also authored the essay “Self-driving car, auto driverless e responsabilità” in the above-mentioned volume). The main question will be, in particular, whether, in the field of liability, the industry needs new specific rules or an evolutive interpretation of existing rules might be sufficient to regulate the phenomenon (and the above-mentioned essay described an interpretative theory suitable to provide many answers to the question).