AI Governance Needs Radical Optionality
One of the most valuable things governments can build today is the capacity to govern advanced AI competently in the future.
This piece was originally published by AI Frontiers.
How should governments regulate the most advanced AI systems? One possible answer is that they should not. Libertarian-minded writers have made the case for a culture of “permissionless innovation” for AI development, in which the role of government would be limited to enforcing existing laws and facilitating industry self-regulation with “soft law” tools such as voluntary standard-setting. Another possibility, more in vogue across the aisle and the pond, would invoke the precautionary principle, using heavy-handed regulation to restrict the development of frontier AI models until developers can adequately prove that their systems are safe.