Adapt or rethinking directive 85/374 on liability for damage caused by defective products to artificial intelligence. latest news

Abstract

We are immersed in a complete technological revolution that makes it advisable and necessary to adapt the existing regulations to the new systems, with new concepts and other updated ones, and with value chains in which multiple agents intervene, hitherto unknown or irrelevant to Directive 85/ 374 on liability for defective products. For now, the proposed Regulation on Artificial Intelligence (2021), despite being the first regulatory framework on the matter, does not deal with civil liability. Hence, taking into account the relevant contributions that this framework incorporates, it is necessary to analyze the specific special regime of civil liability for defective products contained in Directive 85/374. Once the public consultation has begun on how to adapt this text to AI, we cannot lose sight of the fact that including these AI systems in said regulatory framework cannot mean reducing guarantees for those affected.