A Study On The Tort Liability For Self-Driving Cars

As the largest application area of artificial intelligence,the self-driving car has unlimited development prospects.On one hand,the progress of technology has brought convenience in people's life;on the other hand,it also brought challenges to the tort liability for traffic accident.Therefore this paper is mainly comprised of three parts.The first part analyzed the self-driving car's legal personality.The second part discussed challenges to Chinafs tort law.The last separate proposed some suggestion on this basis.Firstly,the introductory section defined the concept of the self-driving car and the classification of the grade.Through differences of industry status and legislative experience,the study on the tort liability for self-driving cars primarily referred to SAE Level 3?SAE Level 4 and SAE Level 5.Conclusively,through the analysis of the present situation of the tort liability allocation,the current legislative defect is that the change of "driving the car,driver responsibility" to "system control the car,driver responsibility" is not handled well.Starting from the existence and determination of the subject of tort liability,the first part discussed the legal personality of the robot.It was noted that the self-consciousness of robots falls within the ambit of moral law and it gives people the false impression that robots have human emotions.Similarly,the self-driving car has no legal rationality.Being faced with the unequal relationship between human beings and robots,negating the theory of tools,electronic slaves,agency and legal persons,the self-driving car doesn,t have independent legal personality.The second part analyzed the unpredictability of the self-driving car and its impact on tort liability system.It was pointed out that the unpredictability is affecting the core of the legal system.It is becoming increasingly difficult to understand the relationship between robot behavior and procedures.And this unpredictability also has influence on the current tort liability system.In reality,the application of traffic accident liability and product liability is hard.Nowadays we need to improve the tort liability system.The third part discussed the improvement of China's tort liability system.By re?explaining the theory of "running and operating interests "and”high-risk liability'5,introducing the strict liability of the motor vehicle holder can be considered.Then it proposed some suggestions to improve application of product liability.These include improving safety production standards,developing product defect standards and perfecting the development risk defense.At last,this paper discussed who is responsible for the tort liability of SAE Level 3n SAE Level 4 and SAE Level 5.In order to conform to the confluence of the owner's liability and product liability,protect the legitimate interests of the victims,and balance the interests and needs of the owner and producer.