Lecture on July 3rd, 2019
Autonomous Systems and Criminal Law – new impulses for the concept of responsibility?
Professor Susanne Beck, LL.M. (LSE), Leibniz University Hanover
About the lecture
Autonomous Systems lead to diffusions of concepts such as (criminal) responsibility. The transfer of parts of human decisions onto machines that act in many ways unforeseeable and uncontrollable means that potential violations of other by the machine are not as easily accountable to one individual as traditional actions and their results. It is especially not sufficient to declare the “human in the loop” responsible, because in many cases he is actually the one not making the decision to use Autonomous Systems (e.g. taxi driver). Thus, concepts such as the one of responsibility have to be adjusted to this new developments. In the talk, we will analyse these problems, consider different adjustments and discuss also some changes for the concept of negligence and the relevance of so called “impossibility structures” and technological systems intended to actually replace state institutions and legal systems and thus maybe declare concepts such as legal responsibility void per se.
About the speaker
Susanne Beck studied law at the University of Wuerzburg and the London School of Economics. After working as Assistant Professor at the UIC, Zhuhai (China) and as Assistant at the University of Wuerzburg, she is Professor at the Leibniz University Hanover since 2013. Her research focuses on Criminal Law, Law of Modern Technologies and Life Sciences (esp. robotics and AI), Law Philosophy and Comparative Law. Susanne Beck is member of different research centers and expert groups in the context AI and law, e.g. Research Centre RobotRecht; Foundation of Responsible Robotics; Project “MOBIPAR”; Plattform „Learning Systems“ (BMBF/acatech).
Wednesday, 3. July 2019, 18:15-19:45
Main Campus, West Wing, Room ESA W 221
Edmund-Siemers-Allee 1
20146 Hamburg
poster lecture Prof. Susanne Beck [pdf]
programme "Taming the Machines" [pdf]
site plans:
lecture halls at Edmund-Siemers Allee 1: ESA1 [pdf]
University of Hamburg (Edmund-Siemers-Allee 1 is number 12 in C3 of the map): UHH [pdf]