Law in the Face of Disruptive Technologies: Electronic Personhood and Civil Liability

Abstract

The constant development of new technologies, their imminent advance in the market and their increasingly affordable scope for consumers, is a matter of deep concern for jurists and legislators at a global level, who seek to solve the various controversies that may arise. , as well as providing effective regulation from the multiple edges that the Law must occupy. From this point of view, the characteristics of emerging digital technologies, such as their autonomy, unpredictability, opacity, among others, constitute the main obstacle to face from the perspective of civil liability. In this sense, it is pertinent to pay attention to the era of hypertechnologization that our society is going through, legal consequences will be very diverse and are still unknown, which is why they constitute  the current vanguard of the study of Law, in a scientific, economic and social stage that is already called as the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Thus, artificial intelligence has been a subject of attention for various branches of science for centuries, and, in its context, the question arises about a possible recognition of legal personality to artifacts equipped with this technology; as well as the need to implement an effective regulatory framework regarding the prevention and repair of the damages that the use of emerging digital technologies may cause. Therefore, the objective of this text is to
address in general features the institutions of personality and civil liability in relation to disruptive  technologies, as a primary focus of this particular from the field of Private Law. 

Key words: new technologies, legal personality, civil liability, disruptive technologies.