The European Union's approach to governing artificial
intelligence (AI) has undergone a significant inversion, shifting
from a liability-focused stance to an ex ante compliance form of
regulation.
Initially, the focus was firmly placed on civil liability
reform. In 2017, the European Parliament's Resolution on Civil
Law Rules on Robotics had already highlighted the shortcomings of
ordinary liability rules in dealing with damages caused by
autonomous robots learning from their own variable experience and
interacting with their environment in a unique and unforeseeable
manner.
The expectation in 2022 was that these gaps were to be filled by
the AI Liability Directive (AILD). However, this law never made it
past the proposal stage and the draft AILD was formally withdrawn
by the European Commission in the latter half of 2025, amongst a
soul-searching exercise in relation to over-regulation that
followed the United States' stance towards de-regulation
