Cato Institute

Reports indicate that the White House is considering an executive order establishing a new working group to regulate artificial intelligence that would “examine potential oversight procedures.” This group would be tasked to devise a system for the government to “approve” the most advanced models before they could launch.

Overreach of government regulation can pose a grave threat to nascent, promising technologies. This is particularly true in the case of AI, with many prognosticators having made the case that AI could pose substantial—even existential—risks to humanity. This has put policymakers and regulators on high alert to discern emerging threats from AI and has left them all too ready to apply heavy-handed regulation to deal with those perceived threats. Most of us are not technologists or, heaven knows, futurists.