THE MACHINE OFFENDER: CAN ALGORITHMS COMMIT CRIMES?

Abstract

The accelerated implementation of artificial intelligence (AI) and autonomous digital technologies into economic, social, and governance structures has made criminal responsibility deeply questionable. While AI is not conscious or intentional, the design, utilization, and operation of AI can have negative consequences engaging human subjects to produce a complex interrelationship between machine action and human accountability. The study examines the digital transformation of crime and policing, illustrating how algorithmic systems not only facilitate new kinds of crimes, including autonomous economic fraud, deepfake projects, and AI-assisted cyberattacks, but also revolutionize policing and legal oversight through anticipatory and automated enforcement mechanisms. Ethical, constitutional, and international dimensions are investigated, highlighting concerns related to accountability, bias, due process, and transnational regulation. It argues that although algorithms cannot have criminal intent, a system of collective and systemic responsibility is necessary to maintain responsibility in the age of computers in order to balance the promise of AI with the requirements of justice and human rights. Algorithms can be defined as the set of instructions that the machine follows to solve a problem or complete a task. How can it influence the way of human thinking? Can humans rely on the algorithms? The world has transformed into a situation where humans are decision makers and the machines become correctives? The question that arrives is that whether we can rely on humans when unethical decisions are taken by machines? The thesis discusses the impact of artificial intelligence and digital technologies reshape the concept of criminal intent and responsibility primarily focusing on the theoretical foundation of mens rea, transformation of crime and enforcement, the evolving challenges of AI driven liability, and the ethical, constitutional, and global implications of culpability in digital era.