Comment by adventured
11 years ago
That depends on what you're talking about.
Near term, AI will be the legal responsibility of its creator. It won't matter if it functions independently after being turned on. It's actually a very non-complex thing, and not very different from what we're already looking at. This type of AI is little different than the software programs we're already running; if someone owns it, they own it and everything it produces (absolutely no different than Google owning its crawlers).
If you mean the assumed futuristic, independent AI that is fully conscious - well that's a very long ways into the future. A lot of things will change once a guy in a garage can spin up a new conscious life form and unleash it into the digital world. There will be an immense number of laws limiting the creation of new AI of this variety. That said, the creator will still bear responsibility for this futuristic AI's actions.
AI will be legally split into two segments: non-sentient / non-conscious, and sentient / conscious. The latter will have at least a magnitude more regulations (in most countries) limiting who is allowed to create it, what it's allowed to be capable of, where it can go, etc.
It's worth remembering that today most people can create sentient and conscious beings, and in most legal systems they're to some degree responsible for the new being's actions until about 18 years of age.