UDTR Global Rights of Nature Radar

A Theory of Vicarious Liability for Autonomous-Machine-Caused Harm

Identification

Public canonical key

doi:10.60082/2817-5069.3678

Authors

Pinchas Huberman

Reported year

2021

Reported language

en

Source type

article

First detected

2026-11-09T19:04:47.876685+00:00

Last metadata observation

2026-11-09T19:04:47.876685+00:00

Last HTTP verification

Not checked

Institutions reported by the source

University of Toronto · Yale University

Reported affiliation countries

CA · US

Documentary abstract — original language

The possibility of autonomous-machine-caused harm generates doctrinal and theoretical challenges for assigning tort liability. With emergent capabilities, autonomous machines disrupt the structure of interpersonal rights and duties in tort law, framed by conditions of foreseeability and proximate causation. Where algorithmic processes are unintelligible, self-modifying, and unpredictable, the concern goes, algorithmic harms will be untraceable to tortious human agency. As a result, their costs will simply lie where they fall—on faultless victims. This outcome would be unfair and objectionable: A failure of tort’s mechanisms of corrective justice means faultless victims would disproportionately bear the accident costs of autonomous machines. This article suggests that the doctrinal form of vicarious liability is a promising strategy to ground tort liability for autonomous-machine-caused harm. Human or corporate deployers should be held liable for tortious harm caused by autonomous machines in the course of deployment. In this account, autonomous machines constitute a novel legal category as pure legal agents without legal personhood. In reconceiving vicarious liability—and the legal classification of autonomous machines—the article seeks to promote commonsensical liability outcomes for autonomous-machine-caused harm, consistent with tort’s doctrinal and theoretical structure of corrective justice.

Identifiers

OPENALEX

W3207087469

DOI

10.60082/2817-5069.3678

Documentary context

Documentary family

Scholarship

Source-reported types

article

Entity mentions are not evidence of legal recognition. Jurisdiction studied is separate from author affiliation country.

Sources

OpenAlex · Record 1 · Record 2

• DOI · https://doi.org/10.60082/2817-5069.3678
• OpenAlex · https://openalex.org/W3207087469

Documented bibliographic relations

Source-declared references and links; they do not establish legal support or UGLC qualification. Up to 20 outgoing references are displayed.

• openalex:w1868451421 · CITES
• openalex:w3124185168 · CITES
• openalex:w3124739569 · CITES

1 incoming references within the detected corpus

Documentary status

Relevance pending

Library

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