Liability and automation: Issues and challenges for socio-technical systems

Who is responsible for accidents in highly automated systems? How do we apportion liability among the various participants in complex socio-technical organisations? How can different liability regulations at different levels (supranational, national, local) be harmonized? How do we provide for accountability, while promoting safety? These and other questions are being addressed by the ALIAS (Addressing Liability in Automated Systems) project. In this paper we present the outline framework of the project, its objectives, and some preliminary results. A framework for liability in aviation is presented, and an analysis of real accidents according to a methodology developed in the project. The same methodology is applied to an hypothetical case involving UAS. In the last section the Legal Case is introduced, that is a methodological tool (currently under development) aimed at identifying and addressing liability issues of automated ATM systems.