The article provides an examination of the rationale for adopting criminal responsibility for artificial intelligence systems. It identifies the basic concepts associated with artificial intelligence and goes on to explore its relationship to morality and ethics. The different approaches to adopting a framework of criminal responsibility for artificial intelligence are discussed in this article, and this is achieved by means of an analysis of the theoretical foundations of criminal responsibility in the continental and common law systems. The article examines the application of familiar criminal science concepts, such as guilt, consciousness and the act, to artificial intelligence systems, and it answers the question of mitigating the liability gap by presenting alternative approaches to the problem for researchers within the Continental and Anglo-Saxon systems. In the concluding section, the article comments on the interpenetration of civil law (and its institutions) with criminal law.