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73 U. Toronto Fac. L. Rev. 69 (2015)
Can Androids Plead Automatism - A Review of When Robots Kill: Artificial Intelligence under the Criminal Law by Gabriel Hallevy

handle is hein.journals/utflr73 and id is 69 raw text is: CAN ANDROIDS PLEAD AUTOMATISM? A REVIEW OF WHEN ROBOTS KILL: ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE UNDER THE CRIMINAL LAW BY GABRIEL HALLEVY RACHEL CHARNEY* Humans have long feared the darker side of artificial intelligence (AI). Mutiny, sabotage, and xenocide are themes that science fiction has frequently explored, kindling what Isaac Asimov called the Frankenstein Complex, or the fear of mechanical people.' Over time, machines have become both increasingly pervasive and intelligent, allowing us to rely on them to perform a broad range of functions. But does our comfort in allowing machines to clean our homes or beat us in a game of chess mean that we are willing to go so far as to treat humans and machines as similar entities under the criminal law? In When Robots Kill: Artificial Intelligence Under Criminal Law, Gabriel Hallevy argues in favour of applying criminal law to artificial intelligence, contending that it would not require any major theoretical revisions to the current legal system. The issues that Hallevy deals with were raised many years ago,2 but by expanding on articles that he has previously written Hallevy is the first to set out how the current criminal law framework could be applied to Al.' Hallevy begins his book by examining the elusive quest for machina sapiens. He explains that although we may never create Al that fully imitates the human mind, criminal liability can still be imposed on machines that are acting under their own agency * Hon BSc (McMaster University), 2nd Year Candidate, JD (University of Toronto). The author would like to thank Sean Gill and the editors of the University of Toronto, Faculty of Law Review for their commentary and assistance. 1 See e.g. The Terminator, 1984, DVD (Santa Monica, Cal: MGM Home Entertainment, 2004); Battlestar Galactica, 2004, DVD (Universal City, Cal: Universal, 2005); The Matrix, 1999, DVD (Warner Bros., 1999); 2001: A Space Odyssey, 1968, DVD (Burbank, Cal: Warner Home Video, 1999); Blade Runner, 1982, DVD (Warner Bros., 1999); See also Lee McCauley, The Frankenstein Complex and Asimov's Three Laws (2007), online: Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence <http://www.aaai.org/Papers/Workshops/2007/WS-07- 07/WS07-07-003.pdf>. 2 See e.g. Raymond S. August, Turning the Computer Into a Criminal (1983) 10 Barrister 12; Phil McNally and Sohail Inayatullah, The rights of robots: Technology, culture and law in the 21st century (1988) 20:2 Futures 119. 3 Gabriel Hallevy, 'I, Robot - I, Criminal' - When Science Fiction Becomes Reality: Legal Liability of Al Robots committing Criminal Offenses (2010) 22 Syracuse Science & Technology L Report 1; Gabriel Hallevy, The Criminal Liability of Artificial Intelligence Entities - From Science Fiction to Legal Social Control (2010) 4:2 Akron Intellectual Property J 171; Gabriel Hallevy, Unmanned Vehicles: Subordination to Criminal Law under the Modern Concept of Criminal Liability (2011) 21:2 J L Info & Sci 200. More broadly, previous literature has discussed the legal agency of non-human agents and when non-human agents can be awarded legal personhood without specifically examining criminal law (see Sapir Chopra & Laurence F. White, A Legal Theory for Autonomous Artificial Agents, (Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 2011)).

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