Behavioural study on the link between challenges of artificial intelligence for Member States' civil liability rules and consumer attitudes towards AI-enabled products and services : executive summary

This study, carried out for the European Commission (DG JUST), examines the link between national civil liability rules and consumers' attitudes towards AI-enabled products and services (AI applications). The study examines, based on behavioural analysis, the following two dimensions: - As regards the societal acceptance of AI applications, the study aims to assess the current level of acceptance of AI applications, the factors shaping it, as well as the awareness of potential challenges in obtaining compensation for damage caused by these applications and its effect on societal acceptance. - With respect to consumers' trust and willingness to take up AI applications, the study aims to generate insights on the potential impact regulatory alternatives adapting the liability regime might have on consumers' trust and their willingness to take up such applications, and on the causal mechanisms underlying this impact. The behavioural experiment was built around three types of AI applications and reflected two scenarios of damage caused by such applications: damage caused to the owners of the AI application and damage caused to a third party. Within each of these scenarios, three alternative liability regimes (from the following: fault-based liability with the burden of proof on the victim, a shift of the burden of proof regarding fault, strict liability of the owner = consumer, strict liability of another party) were presented in the form of fictional interviews with a lawyer. A reduced likelihood of obtaining compensation for damage caused by AI was assumed with respect to fault-based liability regimes putting the burden of proof on the injured party. In line with this study's focus on Member States' national liability rules, none of the posited alternative liability regimes corresponds to the existing Product Liability Directive.