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26 B.U. J. Sci. & Tech. L. 67 (2020)
Autonomous Vehicles and Liability: What Will Juries Do?

handle is hein.journals/jstl26 and id is 75 raw text is: ARTICLE AUTONOMOUS VEHICLES AND LIABILITY: WHAT WILL JURIES DO? GARY MARCHANT AND RIDA BAZZI1 ABSTRACT Autonomous vehicles (AVs) that can be operated without a human driver are now being tested on public roads across America and are soon expected to be commercialized and widely available. One of the greatest roadblocks holding up more rapid deployment of AVs is manufacturers' concerns about AV liability. This article provides a real-world assessment of AV liability risks, and concludes that manufacturers are indeed rightfully concerned about the extent and impacts of liability on AVs. The article first examines the application of product liability doctrine to AVs in various accident scenarios, drawing upon previous vehicle product liability cases. While AV manufacturers will likely and properly be held responsible for most accidents where the vehicle itself is responsible for the crash, the concern is that AV manufacturers may be sued and often held liable even when the AV was not the cause of the collision. This is because AVs have a much greater capability to avoid collisions than does a human-driven vehicle, and thus in almost any crash scenario it may be possible to argue that the AV should have detected and avoided the impending crash. Thus, even though the total number of vehicle accidents should decrease with AV deployment, the share and even net value of liability may go up for AV manufacturers. Next, the article considers jury tendencies and psychology, and concludes that jurors will be particularly harsh on AVs that draw on exotic artificial intelligence technology, and which may be involved in accidents that harm people notwithstanding their claims of improving overall vehicle safety. These factors are likely to result in more frequent and larger punitive damages than in past motor vehicle product liability. Given these finding, the article concludes by recognizing the need for some type of public policy intervention Gary Marchant is Regents' Professor, Lincoln Professor of Emerging Technologies, Law & Ethics, and Faculty Director of the Center for Law, Science & Innovation, Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law, Arizona State University. Rida Bazzi is Associate Professor in the School of Computing, Informatics, and Decision Systems Engineering at Arizona State University. The authors acknowledge and appreciate the very helpful research assistance of Brandon Cartwright, Garrett Decker, and A.J. Gilman. 67