Legal Challenges Of Transforming Business Activities Into Intelligent Swarms, Considering Economic And Organizational Conditions In Road Transport

The research project addresses the groundbreaking issue of transforming swarms of entrepreneurs  in road transport - groups of independent yet cooperating carriers - into automated intelligent swarms based on autonomous vehicles. The primary objective of this research is to conduct an in-depth legal analysis of the admissibility of converting collective forms of economic activity by road transport entrepreneurs - referred to as “swarms of entrepreneurs” - into actual intelligent swarms composed of autonomous vehicles controlled by artificial agents. The core research problem can be formulated as a question of whether, under the current legal framework, it is possible and justified to replace existing transport activities carried out by individual entrepreneurs (natural persons) with actions undertaken by artificial agents operating autonomous vehicles that constitute an intelligent swarm. The project is based on three hypotheses: (1) existing swarms of entrepreneurs already exhibit characteristics of intelligent swarms due to self-organisation and adaptive task distribution; (2) the development of autonomous vehicles will make it possible to replace such swarms with actual intelligent swarms; and (3) the lack of legal adaptation to this evolving reality may hinder the development of innovative transport models. The project stands out for its innovative approach by combining legal analysis with the modelling of economic and technological scenarios. It includes four stages: conceptualizing key notions (swarm intelligence, swarm robotics, platooning); developing use-case scenarios for swarms in the economy (including through the use of Large Language Models); legal analysis of specific cases; and evaluating the economic and social impact of the proposed legal solutions. The legal analysis phase includes a series of key research questions related to, among others, the legal status of intelligent swarms, regulatory barriers, civil and criminal liability, cybersecurity, data circulation, and constitutional limits on the freedom of economic activity. To date, legal scholarship in this area remains fragmentary, with most studies focused on technical and economic aspects. This project constitutes a significant supplement to existing research by developing de lege lata and de lege ferenda recommendations for the legislator aimed at rational and proportionate regulation of intelligent swarms in road transport. The project emphasizes the need to safeguard economic freedom and the principle of proportionality as foundational criteria for assessing the regulatory admissibility of technological transformation in the transport sector. The project envisages extensive interdisciplinary collaboration - particularly between legal, economic and technology and management scholars.