Responsibility Determination: Free Will and Legal Responsibility in the Age of Artificial Intelligence

Abstract

Free will is the foundation of determination of responsibility. Genetic enginnering represented by technologies of gene editing, artificial medical devices and AI have fundamentally challenged the concept of free will and so have significantly influenced determination of legal responsibility. These challenges are fundamental, not instrumental, and can be divided into two aspects in legal philosophy. First, the direct challenge, that is, the emerging technology represented by genetic engineering and artificial narrow intelligence (ANI) has challenged the concept of free will. Second the would-be ultimate challenge, that is, presented by an artificial general intelligence (AGI) agent that is considered to reach humanlevel free will, can be a legal subject, thus taking full legal responsibility. The direct challenge constitutes a new “forgiveness” condition for taking responsibility. The would-be ultimate challenge deserves significant attention, because the concept of free will is not only about human responsibility, but also about human dignity.

Key words： responsibility, responsibility determination, free will, artificial intelligence (AI)