Tuesday, February 17, 2026 - 4:00pm
Event Calendar Category
LIDS Seminar Series
Speaker Name
Florence G'sell
Affiliation
Stanford University
Building and Room Number
32-155
"Toward Workable AI Liability Regimes"
This talk is prompted by the European Union’s decision to abandon the proposed AI Liability Directive, together with the rise of litigation in the United States concerning harms allegedly caused by AI chatbots. Given the concrete risks already associated with AI systems, the question is what an effective and coherent AI liability regime might look like. This talk claims that future AI liability frameworks should be designed not only around familiar goals such as deterrence and victim compensation, but also with explicit attention to insurability. It provides a brief overview of nascent insurance practices and market responses aimed at covering AI-related risks. Viewing liability through this lens offers a pragmatic and economically grounded pathway toward more workable and sustainable governance of AI harms.
Florence G’sell is a Visiting Professor at Stanford University (Freeman Spogli Institute), where she leads the Program on Governance of Emerging Technologies. She is a Professor of Private Law at the University of Lorraine (currently on leave), a member of the AI and Society Institute (ENS-PSL) and a research affiliate at the Centre for Digital Law (Singapore Management University). From 2019 to 2025, she led the Digital Governance and Sovereignty Chair at Sciences Po (Paris). Her recent publications include Regulating under Uncertainty. Governance Options for Generative AI (Stanford Cyber Policy Center, 2024); Statutory Obsolescence in the Age of Innovation: a Few Thoughts about GDPR (Network Law Review, September 2025) andBalancing Code and Law: Governance and Policy Challenges of Blockchain (forthcoming). Professor G’sell graduated from Sciences Po, is admitted to the Paris Bar, holds a PhD in Private Law from the University of Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne, and holds the French agrégation in Private Law and Criminal Sciences.