Washington is waking up to AI’s risks about three years too late

Some of the biggest companies on the planet have staked their futures, and ours, on the proliferation of AI, a technology so complex and dangerous its own inventors are begging them to slow down.

Some of the biggest companies on the planet have staked their futures, and ours, on the proliferation of AI, a technology so complex and dangerous its own inventors are begging them to slow down. That sure seems like the kind of thing US lawmakers might want to regulate on a level comparable to the federal government’s strict oversight of, say, narcotics or cigarettes, or even TikTok. But Congress hasn’t passed a single bill on AI, and a bipartisan “roadmap” released last month is far from certain to be taken during an election year. (Which is ironic, given that one of the priorities of the roadmap is making sure AI doesn’t, like, hijack the American electoral process.) Unsurprisingly, then, we’re relying on the understaffed, underfunded Federal Trade Commission and the Justice Department to try to keep Big Tech in line through enforcement. See here: Antitrust officials at the FTC and the Justice Department are nearing a final agreement this week on how to jointly oversee AI giants including Microsoft, Google, Nvidia, OpenAI and others, my colleague Brian Fung reports. The agreement suggests a broad crackdown is coming, and fast. But likely not fast enough. The proverbial AI horse has left the barn, and it’s running wild.