인공지능을 가진 로봇의 법적 취급 : 자율주행자동차 사고의 법적 인식과 책임을 중심으로

Autonomous robots with artificial intelligence is becoming reality. A typical example is a autonomous vehicle, a drone, or a robo-adviser. This sophisticated machines with "autonomous nature" poses a difficult question for law. Although such autonomous machines are to be treated in law as "things" that are objects of human control, due to their autonomous character, they may cause injuries without any involvement of their principals. Here, the question arises who bears responsibility for the injuries when there is no negligence on the part of the principal or their maker ? One possible option is a progmatic approach of redistributing responsibilities among the principal or their maker. Here, either the principal or the maker will assume their strict liability even if they are not negligent. Another option is to grant the autonomous robots a "purpose-specific" legal capacity to bear the responsibility and to allow them to benefit third party insurance. In this approach, there is much room for the principal or the maker to negotiate how to pay the insurance premium.