The EU AI Act (Regulation (EU) 2024/1689) is the world’s first comprehensive AI law, and it applies to companies worldwide. If your AI system is used in the European Union, you’re subject to EU jurisdiction regardless of where your headquarters is located. For US companies serving European markets, this creates significant compliance obligations and liability exposure that cannot be ignored.
The Doctrine That Solves AI’s Black Box Problem # Artificial intelligence systems are often described as “black boxes”, systems where inputs go in and outputs emerge, but the internal reasoning remains opaque even to their creators. This opacity creates a fundamental litigation problem: how can an injured plaintiff prove what went wrong inside a system that nobody can fully explain?
The End of Platform Immunity for AI # For three decades, Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act shielded online platforms from liability for user-generated content. That shield is crumbling. Courts now distinguish between passively hosting third-party content, still protected, and actively generating, amplifying, or curating content through AI systems, increasingly not protected.
The Autonomous Agent Challenge # AI systems are evolving from tools that respond to prompts into agents that act autonomously. These “agentic” AI systems can browse the web, execute code, manage files, schedule appointments, negotiate purchases, and even enter contracts, all without human intervention at each step.
AI in Agriculture: A Liability Frontier # Precision agriculture promises to revolutionize farming through artificial intelligence, optimizing pesticide applications, predicting crop yields, detecting plant diseases, and operating autonomous equipment. But this technological transformation raises critical liability questions that remain largely untested in courts. When AI-driven recommendations violate regulations, who bears responsibility? When autonomous farm equipment causes injury, how is liability allocated? And when algorithmic bias harms smaller operations, what remedies exist?
The Central Question # Does Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act:“the 26 words that created the internet”, protect AI companies from liability for content their systems generate?
Liability Allocation # Who is liable when AI makes a mistake, the user, deployer, or vendor? # The short answer: it depends on the circumstances, but deployers typically bear primary responsibility.