Intelligent agents and criminal law-Negligence, diffusion of liability and electronic personhood

The recent development of robotics poses new challenges for the lawgiver as well as for jurisprudence, especially when it comes to criminal law. The ascription of criminal liability to a specific individual is difficult when confronted with an autonomous, adaptive and learning robot. One possible solution could be to adapt the negligence regime to the changes in robotics. Another possibility is to ascribe a specific legal status to autonomous machines, similar to the status of legal persons (corporations). It also has to be considered that the responsibility transfer onto machines will have repercussions onto normative concepts our society is based upon. Thus, the space for these changes has to be created consciously.