Faculty Publications
Document Type
Article
Publication Version
Published Version
Keywords
AI governance; Public trust; Democratic accountability; User-centric liability; Power asymmetries; Operational responsibility; Human agency; Responsibility gaps
Journal/Book/Conference Title
AI and Ethics
Volume
6
Issue
306
First Page
1
Last Page
16
Abstract
Who bears responsibility when artificial intelligence systems cause harm? This question has become central to AI ethics and governance. Most existing approaches focus on developers, yet this faces serious practical and theoretical problems. Drawing on tort law, agency law, and philosophy of technology, this paper argues that AI should be understood as an instrument whose outputs remain the responsibility of human operators rather than developers. We call this 'user-centric governance.' Placing accountability with deployers promotes public trust by creating clear lines of responsibility, a concern that governance approaches have often overlooked. It preserves democratic accountability by keeping human actors answerable for AI-mediated decisions, and it counters power imbalances by ensuring that those who use AI bear consequences for how they use it. Legal principles of instrumentality show that operational responsibility should follow use rather than creation. We propose a 'distributed yet centered' governance model that acknowledges developer obligations while treating deployment decisions as the center of primary accountability.
Department
Department of Economics
Original Publication Date
5-20-2026
Object Description
1 PDF File
DOI of published version
10.1007/s43681-026-01163-7
Repository
UNI ScholarWorks, Rod Library, University of Northern Iowa
Copyright
©2026 The Author(s)
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Language
en
File Format
application/pdf
Recommended Citation
Chen, Zhengyang, "Operational Responsibility in AI Governance: A User-centric Liability Framework" (2026). Faculty Publications. 6953.
https://scholarworks.uni.edu/facpub/6953
Included in
Agency Commons, Applied Ethics Commons, Artificial Intelligence and Robotics Commons, Computer Law Commons, Digital Humanities Commons, Ethics and Political Philosophy Commons, Other Legal Studies Commons, Public Administration Commons, Public Policy Commons, Science and Technology Law Commons
Comments
First published in AI and Ethics, v6 n306 published by Springer Nature. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s43681-026-01163-7