Rethinking the Legal Status of Robots and Artificial Intelligence in Transnational Criminal Jurisprudence

Abstract

Globalization and technological advancements have occasioned dramatic increase in transnational crimes, posing a huge threat to the socioeconomic basis of societies and the confidence reposed in the rule of law. Transnational crimes are contraventions of law that involve more than one country in their planning and execution. Their actual and potential effects transcend national boundaries and are hardly ever of entirely local interest. This explains the very pivotal involvement of the international community in combating the upsurge and multiplicity of transnational crimes. In the prosecution of transnational crime actors, international law recognizes the culpability of natural persons and artificial entities also known as juridical persons in the perpetration of transnational crimes. Natural persons are human beings and are held to be responsible for their actions according to law while juridical persons are creations of the law, usually, businesses or corporations which have capacity to sue as well as to face legal actions. A major development that appears to be overlooked in the consideration of the legal personality and liability of transnational crime perpetrators is the culpability of Robots and artificial intelligence (AI). The fast evolving field of robotics and artificial intelligence have ignited debates regarding its transnational criminal legal framework. There are no transnational legal regimes regulating actions conducted by artificial intelligence or robots. There is equally no transnational legal regime directly addressing the culpability of creators, manufactures, designers, programmers and owners of robots transnationally. The legal personality of robots and other artificial intelligence is recondite, raising several legal issues such as, are robots humans, are they legal persons capable of committing transnational crimes, can they be fired, can they be imprisoned, are they agents of their manufacturers e.t.c. This research reechoes the need for these complex issues plaguing the legal regulation of robots and artificial intelligence transnationally to be resolved with a great sense of urgency.