CAUSATIONT: Modeling Causation in AI&Law

Abstract. Reasoning about causation in fact is an essential element of
attributing legal responsibility. Therefore, the automation of the attri-
bution of legal responsibility requires a modelling e®ort aimed at the
following: a thorough understanding of the relation between the legal
concepts of responsibility and of causation in fact; a thorough under-
standing of the relation between causation in fact and the common sense
concept of causation; and, finally, the specification of an ontology of the
concepts that are minimally required for (automatic) common sense rea-
soning about causation. This article o®ers a worked out example of the
indicated analysis, which comprises: a definition of the legal concept of
responsibility; a definition of the legal concept of causation in fact; CausatiOnt, an AI-like ontology of the common sense (causal) concepts that
are minimally needed for reasoning about the legal concept of causation
in fact.