Introduction

Research on artificial intelligence (AI) and automisation in private law explores how emerging technologies are reshaping the legal rules that govern relationships between private parties. AI systems introduce new characteristics—such as autonomy, opacity, and unpredictability—that challenge established private law concepts like liability, causation, consent, and responsibility.
 
A key perspective in the literature is that private law is highly adaptable. Its core doctrines rely on open-ended standards that can evolve gradually through judicial interpretation and legal development. However, this flexibility also raises concerns: if these standards are stretched too far, they may lose coherence, leading to doctrinal confusion or conceptual dilution. Within this broader context, the use of AI/automation raises important questions across several core areas of private law:
 
• Labour law: How does algorithmic management and AI-driven workplace monitoring reshape the employment relationship, particularly in relation to worker autonomy, surveillance, and control, and to what extent can existing labour law and collective bargaining frameworks adequately regulate AI-mediated work?
• Tort law: How should liability be allocated when AI systems cause harm, and do existing doctrines adequately address “liability gaps” created by autonomous decision-making?
• Contract law: How should law regulate automated or “self-driving” contracts, particularly in ensuring transparency, fairness, and meaningful control over algorithmic decision-making?
• Consumer law: To what extent can consumer protection frameworks address risks such as algorithmic manipulation, bias, and loss of autonomy, and is regulatory reform required?
• Property and intellectual property law: Should data or AI-generated outputs be protected as property or under new IP rights, and how should ownership or control be structured?
• Company law: How should AI be integrated into corporate governance and directors’ duties, particularly in relation to the duty of care and reliance on algorithmic decision-making under the business judgment rule?
 
Taken together, these questions reflect a broader concern: whether existing private law frameworks are sufficiently adaptable to govern AI, or whether more fundamental doctrinal and conceptual reform is required.