Definitions of intent suitable for algorithms

Artificial Intelligence and Law - Tập 31 - Trang 515-546 - 2022
Hal Ashton1
1University College London, London, UK

Tóm tắt

This article introduces definitions for direct, means-end, oblique (or indirect) and ulterior intent which can be used to test for intent in an algorithmic actor. These definitions of intent are informed by legal theory from common law jurisdictions. Certain crimes exist where the harm caused is dependent on the reason it was done so. Here the actus reus or performative element of the crime is dependent on the mental state or mens rea of the actor. The ability to prosecute these crimes is dependent on the ability to identify and diagnose intentional states in the accused. A certain class of auto didactic algorithmic actor can be given broad objectives without being told how to meet them. Without a definition of intent, they cannot be told not to engage in certain law breaking behaviour nor can they ever be identified as having done it. This ambiguity is neither positive for the owner of the algorithm or for society. The problem exists over and above more familiar debates concerning the eligibility of algorithms for culpability judgements that mens rea is usually associated with. Aside from inchoate offences, many economic crimes with elements of fraud or deceit fall into this category of crime. Algorithms operate in areas where these crimes could be plausibly undertaken depending on whether the intent existed in the algorithm or not.

Tài liệu tham khảo

Abbott R (2020) Reasonable robots. In: The reasonable robot, pp 50–70. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108631761.004 Abbott R, Sarch A (2020) Punishing artificial intelligence: legal fiction or science fiction. Is law computable? pp 323–384. https://doi.org/10.5040/9781509937097.ch-008 ACCC (2005) Predatory pricing. Technical report 5, Australian Competition and Consumer Commission. http://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/journals/AUCCCUpdate/2005/5.html# Alexander L, Kessler KD (1997) Mens rea and inchoate crimes. J Crim Law Criminol 87(4):1138. https://doi.org/10.2307/1144017 Alldridge P (1990) The doctrine of innocent agency. Crim Law Forum 2(1):45–83. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01096228 Anjomshoae S, Najjar A, Calvaresi D, Främling K (2019) Explainable agents and robots: results from a systematic literature review. In: Proceedings of the 18th international conference on autonomous agents and multiagent systems, Montreal Ashton H (2021a) Extending counterfactual accounts of intent to include oblique intent. http://arxiv.org/abs/2106.03684 Ashton H (2021b) What criminal and civil law tells us about safe RL techniques to generate law-abiding behaviour. In: Workshop on AI safety 2021 co-located with the thirty fifth AAAI conference on artificial intelligence. http://ceur-ws.org/Vol-2808/Paper_25.pdf Bathaee Y (2018) The artificial intelligence black box and the failure of intent and causation. Harvard J Law Technol 31(2):890–938 Baier C, Katoen JP (2008) Principles of model checking. MIT Press, Cambridge Bentham J (1823) An introduction to the principles of morals and legislation. https://www.earlymoderntexts.com/assets/pdfs/bentham1780.pdf, in the version by Jonathan Bennett Boeckle M, Schiestl M, Frohnwieser A, Gruber R, Miller R, Suddendorf T, Gray RD, Taylor AH, Clayton NS (2020) New Caledonian crows plan for specific future tool use. In: Proceedings of the royal society b: biological sciences, vol 287(1938). https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2020.1490 Bratman ME (1990) What is intention? In: Cohen PR, Morgan J, Pollock ME (eds) Intentions in communication. MIT Press, Cambridge (Chap 2) Bratman ME (2009) Intention, practical rationality, and self-governance. Ethics 119:411–443 Cane P (2019) Mens rea in tort law. Intent Law Philos 20(4):129–159. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315187136-7 Chakraborti T, Kulkarni A, Sreedharan S, Smith DE, Kambhampati S (2019) Explicability? legibility? predictability? transparency? privacy? security? the emerging landscape of interpretable agent behavior. In: Proceedings of the twenty-ninth international conference on automated planning and scheduling, p 11 Child J (2017) Understanding ulterior mens REA: future conduct intention is conditional intention. Camb Law J 76(2):311–336. https://doi.org/10.1017/S000819731700040X CFTC (2013) Antidisruptive Practices Authority Interpretative guidance and policy statement. Technical report RIN 3038-AD96, Commodity Futures Trading Commission CNECT (2021) Proposal for a regulation of the European parliament and of the Council laying down harmonised rules on artificial intelligence (Artificial Intelligence Act) and amending certain union legislative acts. Technical report COM/2021/206, European Commission, Directorate-General for Communications Networks, Content and Technology. https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?qid=1623335154975 &uri=CELEXuri%3A52021PC0206 Coffey G (2009) Codifying the meaning of ‘intention’ in the criminal law. J Crim Law 73(5):394–413. https://doi.org/10.1350/jcla.2009.73.5.590 Cohen PR, Levesque HJ (1990) Intention is choice with commitment. Artif Intell 42(2–3):213–261. https://doi.org/10.1016/0004-3702(90)90055-5 Criminal Prosecution Service (2019) Homicide: murder and manslaughter. https://www.cps.gov.uk/legal-guidance/homicide-murder-and-manslaughter De Jong F (2011) Theorizing criminal intent: a methodological account. Utrecht Law Rev 7(1):1. https://doi.org/10.18352/ulr.144 Finn JK, Tregenza T, Norman MD (2009) Defensive tool use in a coconut-carrying octopus. Curr Biol 19(23):1069–1070 Fletcher GP (1971) Theory of criminal negligence: a comparative analysis. Univ Pa Law Rev 119(3):401–438 Furey JR (2010) A consistent approach to assessing mens rea in the criminal law of England and Wales. Ph.D. thesis, University of Exeter Gershman SJ (2015) Reinforcement learning and causal models. In: Oxford handbook of causal reasoning, pp 1–32 Halpern JY (2016) Actual causality. MIT Press, Cambridge Halpern JY, Kleiman-Weiner M (2018) Towards formal definitions of blameworthiness, intention, and moral responsibility. In: 32nd AAAI conference on artificial intelligence, AAAI 2018, pp 1853–1860 Hildebrandt M (2019) Closure: on ethics, code and law. In: Law for computer scientists, chap 11. Oxford University Press Kasperkevic J (2015) Swiss police release robot that bought ecstasy online. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/apr/22/swiss-police-release-robot-random-darknet-shopper-ecstasy-deep-web Kenny A (2013) Intention and side effects: the mens rea for murder. In: Keown J, George RP (eds) Reason, morality, and law: the philosophy of John Finnis, Oxford scholarship online, chap 7, pp 109–117. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199675500.001.0001 Kinny D, Georgeff M, Rao A (1996) A methodology and modelling technique for systems of BDI agents. Lecture notes in computer science (including subseries lecture notes in artificial intelligence and lecture notes in bioinformatics) 1038, pp 56–71. https://doi.org/10.1007/bfb0031846 Klass AB (2007) Punitive damages and valuing harm. Minnesota Law Rev 92(1):83–160 Klass G (2009) A conditional intent to perform. Leg Theory 15(2):107–147. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1352325209090089 Klass G (2012) Meaning, purpose, and cause in the law of deception. Georget Law J 100:446–449 Klass G, Ayres I (2006) New rules for promissory fraud. Ariz Law Rev 48:957–971 Kleiman-Weiner M, Gerstenberg T, Levine S, Tenenbaum JB (2015) Inference of intention and permissibility in moral decision making. In: Proceedings of the 37th annual conference of the cognitive science society, vol 1(1987), pp 1123–1128 Lagioia F, Sartor G (2020) AI systems under criminal law: a legal analysis and a regulatory perspective. Philos Technol 33(3):433–465. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13347-019-00362-x Lehman J, Clune J, Misevic D (2020) The surprising creativity of digital evolution: a collection of anecdotes from the evolutionary computation and artificial life research communities. Artif Life 26(2):274–306. https://doi.org/10.1162/artl_a_00319 Loveless J (2010) Mens rea: intention, recklessness, negligence and gross negligence. In: Complete criminal law, 2nd edn, chap 3. Oxford University Press, pp 90–150 McIntyre A (2019) Doctrine of double effect. In: Zalta EN (ed) Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy, spring, 201st edn. Metaphysics Research Lab, Stanford University, Stanford Ormerod D, Laird K (2021a) 4. Crimes of negligence. In: Smith, Hogan, and Ormerod’s Criminal Law. Oxford University Press, pp 136–145. https://doi.org/10.1093/he/9780198849704.003.0004. https://www.oxfordlawtrove.com/view/10.1093/he/9780198849704.001.0001/he-9780198849704-chapter-4 Ormerod D, Laird K (2021b) 5. Crimes of strict liability. In: Smith, Hogan, and Ormerod’s Criminal Law. Oxford University Press, pp 146–179. https://doi.org/10.1093/he/9780198849704.003.0005. https://www.oxfordlawtrove.com/view/10.1093/he/9780198849704.001.0001/he-9780198849704-chapter-5 Parsons S (2000) Intention in criminal law: why is it so difficult to find? Mountbatten J Legal Stud 4(1 & 2):5–19. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0841820900001375 Passino KM, Seeley TD, Visscher PK (2008) Swarm cognition in honey bees. Behav Ecol Sociobiol 62(3):401–414. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00265-007-0468-1 Reina A, Bose T, Trianni V, Marshall JA (2018) Psychophysical Laws and the Superorganism. Sci Rep 8(1):1–8. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-22616-y Robbins IP (1990) The ostrich instruction: deliberate ignorance as a criminal mens rea. J Crim Law Criminol (1973-) 81(2):191. https://doi.org/10.2307/1143906 Sales P (2019) Algorithms, artificial intelligence and the law. https://www.bailii.org/bailii/lecture/06.pdf Shute S (2002) Knowledge and belief in the criminal law. In: Shute S, Simester A (eds) Criminal law theory: doctrines of the general part, Oxford scholarship online, chap 8. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199243495.001.0001 Simester AP (2021) Fundamentals of criminal law: responsibility, culpability, and wrongdoing, 1st edn. Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK, oCLC: on1242932280 Simester AP, Spencer JR, Stark F, Sullivan GR, Virgo GJ (2019) Mens rea. In: Simester and Sullivan’s criminal law, 7th edn, Hart, chap 5, pp 137–190 Smith JC (1990) A note on “intention’’. Crim Law Rev Feb:85–91 Stark F (2017) Introduction. In: Culpable carelessness: recklessness and negligence in the criminal law, chap 1. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp 1–25. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139855945.001 Storey T (2019) Inchoate offences. In: Unlocking criminal law, 7th edn, chap 6. Routledge, pp 137–170. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429322303 Taylor G (2004) Concepts of intention in German criminal law. Oxf J Leg Stud 24(1):99–127. https://doi.org/10.1093/ojls/24.1.99 The American Law Insitute (2017) General requirements of culpability. https://archive.org/details/ModelPenalCode_ALI/page/n31/mode/2up The Law Commission (1989) A criminal code for England and Wales. Volume 1: report and draft criminal code bill, vol 177. HMSO. http://www.lawcom.gov.uk/app/uploads/2015/06/Criminal_Code_177_1.pdf The Law Commission (1993) Legislating the criminal code: offences against the person and general principles. 218. HMSO The Law Commission (2007) Conspiracy and attempts: a consultation paper. http://www.lawcom.gov.uk/app/uploads/2015/03/cp183_Conspiracy_and_Attempts_Consultation.pdf The Law Commission (2015a) Appendix C: Home office draft bill. In: Reform of offences the person, William Lea Group on behalf of HMSO, pp 212–232. http://www.lawcom.gov.uk/app/uploads/2015/11/51950-LC-HC555_Web.pdf The Law Commission (2015b) Reform of offences against the person (report). http://www.lawcom.gov.uk/app/uploads/2015/11/51950-LC-HC555_Web.pdf Weir AA, Chappell J, Kacelnik A (2002) Shaping of hooks in new Caledonian crows. Science 297(5583):981. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1073433 Williams G (1987) Oblique intention. Camb Law J 46(3):417–438. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0008197300117453 Yaffe G (2004) Conditional intent and mens rea. Leg Theory 10(4):273–310. https://doi.org/10.1017/S135232520404025X