From Human Offenders to Artificial Agents: Toward a Criminological Framework for Autonomous AI-Enabled Crime
Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: “Generative and agentic artificial intelligence (AI) is developing at a rapid pace, changing the relationship between technology and crime. However, the growing autonomy of systems that can plan, adapt, use tools and take goal-directed actions, challenges this traditional human-centric perspective and the dominant conceptualization of AI in existing research as a tool that enhances human offending. This narrative literature review explores the shift from human led AI assisted crime to human-AI collaborative and potentially autonomous artificial agent offending. We synthesize literature from criminology, cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, criminal law, and technology governance to evaluate the relevance of established criminological perspectives, including rational choice theory, routine activity theory, social learning theory, deterrence, and situational crime prevention. Particular attention is paid to emerging challenges such as artificial agency, criminal intent, responsibility attribution, multi-agent interactions and machine-oriented deterrence. The review provides a criminological framework for conceptualizing AI-enabled crime on a continuum ranging from traditional human offending to AI-assisted crime, human-directed agentic crime, human-AI collaboration, semi-autonomous AI-enabled crime, and, in theory, highly autonomous artificial-agent crime. We propose six dimensions to analyze these new forms of offending: human involvement, AI autonomy, goal formation, decision-making capacity, foreseeability and responsibility attribution. The review argues for a criminology that moves beyond a purely human-centred conception of crime, but also avoids prematurely attributing consciousness or human-equivalent culpability to artificial intelligence systems. Future empirical research should take into account human-AI co-offending, multi-agent interactions, computational guardianship, forensic attribution and the applicability of criminological theories in autonomous digital environments. This framework provides a basis for comprehending crime in increasingly complex sociotechnical human-machine systems.
Authors: Brandon Presley, Muhammad Arslan
Institutions: Institute of Southern Punjab, Purdue Global
Language: English
Subfield: Law
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: bronze
OpenAlex ID: W7214173096