Artificial Intelligence and the Digital Environment: From Information Asymmetry to the Correction of Structural Design Asymmetry as a Guiding Principle of Consumer Protection

de Guzmán C.A.N. · Revista Iberoamericana de la Propiedad Intelectual (2026) · DOI: 10.26422/ripi.2026.2400.nin

Resumen

Artificial intelligence has changed the way consumer relationships unfold in digital environments. Peruvian consumer protection law was built upon information asymmetry — that is, upon the idea that consumers decide with less information than suppliers and that correcting this deficit is enough to balance the relationship. That assumption is no longer sufficient. In digital commerce, where the supplier manages not only the offer but also the performance of the contract, the ordering of results, the personalisation of prices, the way options are presented, and the dark patterns that make cancelling or comparing difficult all end up steering the consumer's decision, even when the full information is within reach. The imbalance no longer stems from what the supplier fails to disclose, but from how it designs the space in which the consumer chooses. Scholarship has identified this phenomenon as a structural asymmetry, and this article argues that Peruvian consumer law should recognise it as an autonomous category. On that basis, it proposes incorporating into the Preliminary Title of the Consumer Protection and Defence Code a principle of correction of structural digital design asymmetry, serving suppliers as a standard of conduct when configuring their digital environments and the administrative authority as a criterion for assessing them. The principle is framed as a general standard, defined by its structure rather than by the practices we know today, because the digital environment changes faster than the legislature can classify its manifestations. © (2026), (Austral University). All right reserved.

Instituciones: Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú