AI characterisations and their legal implications

Jerrold Soh

Chapter Chapter 11 in Research Handbook on the Law of Artificial Intelligence, 2025, pp 213-231 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: This chapter examines the difficult legal characterisation problems that artificially intelligent systems raise and explores how different characterisations of artificial intelligence (AI) shape practical legal outcomes. Three reasons are offered for the legal difficulty with characterising AI. First, answers to characterisation problems are inherently subjective and perspective-driven, particularly when the subject is an intangible technological system. Second, AI technology is especially difficult to define since the field typically proceeds on inexact anthropomorphic metaphors. Third, AI characterisation problems raise difficult sub-problems, particularly in determining how autonomous an AI system is. The chapter thus argues that a range of plausible AI characterisations will inevitably exist for lawyers to choose from, as demonstrated by the plethora of things, entities, and persons scholars have likened them to. In turn, these choices shape how we think about regulating and assigning responsibility for AI systems. Here the point is substantiated with case studies of emerging AI regulations and recent litigation involving AI systems in commercial, defamation, and intellectual property contexts. The chapter concludes by reiterating the inherent malleability of AI characterisations and calling on regulators and adjudicators to be more deliberate in choosing characterisations aligned with their intended legal outcomes.

Keywords: AI Act; Commercial defamation; Intellectual property; Legal analogy; Artificial intelligence (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
ISBN: 9781035316489
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