The Legal and Ethical Considerations of AI-Controlled Vehicles
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Robert Clifford Pens Column on the Legal and Ethical Considerations of AI-Controlled Vehicles

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Posted on August 24, 2026 To
Robert Clifford Pens Column on the Legal and Ethical Considerations of AI-Controlled Vehicles

In a Chicago Lawyer article titled “Facing the Facts“, Robert A. Clifford, founder and senior partner at Clifford Law Offices, scrutinizes the ethical and legal ramifications of vehicles controlled by artificial intelligence.

Cases involving people injured or killed in accidents involving driverless cars that depend upon machine learning from enormous databases are beginning to hit courthouses across the country. So who is to blame when a person is not necessarily at fault? That is not to say no one is to blame.

“Traditional legal doctrine is built around agency. Courts assign blame because someone chose poorly, ignored a risk or acted recklessly. Al systems do not intend or deliberate morally. They calculate,” Clifford wrote.

He went on to say, “For plaintiffs, litigation will focus on technical discovery, expert testimony on sensor fusion and decision-making algorithms, and the storytelling needed to translate complex software dynamics into tort frameworks.”

Click here to read Bob’s full article.