Liability law was built for products that behave the same way every time, and for people whose mistakes can be traced back to a decision. AI systems fit neither assumption. They are opaque, they change with use, and the harm they cause is usually the work of many hands: assembling the training data, placing the system on the market, deploying it in a particular setting, and relying on its output.
We analyse who should carry that risk, and on what terms. When does a defective AI system trigger product liability, and what counts as a defect in a system designed to learn? What is fault-based liability on users still able to do when AI is supposed to act (semi)-autonomously? Where do the compliance duties of the AI Act meet private-law liability, now that the AI Liability Directive has been withdrawn? When the state itself deploys such systems, when does state liability apply? And where harm is serious enough to engage the criminal law, what does responsibility look like if no single person decided anything?
The revised EU Product Liability Directive and its transposition; the implementation of the AI Act and the gap left by the withdrawn AI Liability Directive; Swiss tort and product liability law and the question of whether it needs adapting at all; state liability for automated administrative decisions; and the standards work where much of the substance of “defect” is actually being settled.
Liability for generative AI output (Miriam Buiten)
How to regulate technology? AI-specific rules and the future of tech regulation (Miriam Buiten)
Employee Liability for AI Use (Isabelle Wildhaber)
A new Product Safety Act for Switzerland (Isabelle Wildhaber)
Case Study Construction Robot (Isabelle Wildhaber)
Buiten, Product Liability for Defective AI, European Journal of Law and Economics, Vol. 57: 239-273 (2024)
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Buiten, de Streel & Peitz, The Law and Economics of AI Liability, Computer Law & Security Review, Vol. 48: 105794 (2022)
Buiten, de Streel & Peitz, EU Liability Rules for the Age of Artificial Intelligence (CERRE Report, 2021)
Buiten, Towards Intelligent Regulation of Artificial Intelligence, European Journal of Risk Regulation, Vol. 10(1): 41-59 (2019)
Wildhaber, Eine Einführung in die Haftung für Künstliche Intelligenz (KI), in: Haftpflichtprozess 2021 (2021)
Wildhaber, Artificial intelligence and robotics, the workplace, employment law and other workplace-related legal issues, in: Research Handbook on the Law of Artificial Intelligence (Edward Elgar, 2018)
Simmler, Strafrechtliche Verantwortung beim Zusammenwirken von Mensch und Maschine, Basel 2025.
Simmler, (2024). Responsibility gap or responsibility shift? The attribution of criminal responsibility in human–machine interaction. Information, Communication & Society, 27(6), 1142–1162. doi.org/10.1080/1369118X.2023.2239895
Simmler, Ensuring Accountability for Robots and AI under Criminal Law. In: Barfield W, Weng Y-H, Pagallo U, eds. The Cambridge Handbook of the Law, Policy, and Regulation for Human–Robot Interaction. Cambridge Law Handbooks. Cambridge University Press; 2024:798-812.
Wildhaber, Extrawurst Schweiz – auch im Produkthaftungsrecht?, in: Ebers Martin/Gsell Beate/Mayrhofer Ann-Kristin/Danda Clemens (Hrsg.), Neue europäische Produkthaftung, Update oder Upgrade der Haftung für innovative Technologien?, Baden-Baden Nomos-Verlag 2025, S. 145-176
Wildhaber, Ausservertragliche Haftung trotz Blackbox? – Verschiedene mögliche Ansätze für eine Betreiberhaftung, in: Gesellschaft für Rechtsvergleichung (Hrsg.), Künstliche Intelligenz – Zurechnung, Vertrag, Verantwortung, Tübingen Mohr Siebeck 2024, S. 117-154
Wildhaber, KI und Haftung: Lösungsansätze für die Schweiz, Jusletter IT vom 4. Juli 2024
Wildhaber, Eine Einführung in die Haftung für Künstliche Intelligenz (KI), in: HAVE (Hrsg.), Haftpflichtprozess 2021, Zürich Schulthess Verlag 2021, S. 15-69
Ebert/Wildhaber, Piercing the Veil of Opacity: Responsibility and Liability for the Use of People Analytics Tools, Morals + Machines 1/2 (2021) S. 40-49
Drittenbass/Wildhaber, Regulation of Medical Robots in Switzerland, The Example of Robotic Applications in Minimally Invasive Surgery, Life Science Recht (LSR) 3 (2020) S. 11-19
Professor of Private and Business Law with special emphasis on Labour Law
Associate Professor of Criminal Law, Law of Criminal Procedure and Criminology