Bearing punishment

Punishment is something done to someone who can undergo it. A fine takes from a person who owns, a sentence takes time from a person who has a life to spend, a disqualification closes a door that someone wanted open. Systems can be switched off, retrained, recalled or withdrawn from the market, and none of that reaches them. The Rome Statute states the principle for the gravest crimes: the Court has jurisdiction over natural persons, and whoever commits a crime within that jurisdiction is individually responsible and liable for punishment. When harm arrives through an automated system the sanction travels upward, to whoever built, sold or deployed it. The question a court is asking is not which component failed. It is who must bear the consequence, and only a person can be an answer to that question.