Legal challenges of artificial intelligence : modelling the disruptive features of emerging technologies and assessing their possible legal impact

Abstract

The extensive use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools and systems and its extraordinary relevance in a multitude of social and economic domains must be framed into the broader context of a second wave of digital transformation. AI embodies the transformative force and the disruptive potential of a second generation of technologies that are ushering in a new stage of the digital evolution of our societies and economies. The acceleration and accumulation of technological developments pose unforeseen challenges to the twenty-first century’s law. A systematic, extensive, and wisely combined application of these emerging technologies, such as AI and advanced robotics, Internet-of-Things (IoT), and DLT, offers fascinating possibilities and announces great disruptive effects. The aim of this paper is to devise an analytical framework to identify the disruptive features of AI, as one of the most illustrative exponent of the second-generation technologies, and assess the potential impact on certain existing principles, rules and concepts.