Dean Ball, board member, The Alexander Hamilton Institute for the Study of Western Civilization (AHI), continues his scrutiny of artificial intelligence. Mr. Ball reacts to major news from California on the demise of a vast AI regulatory bill. In “What Comes After SB 1047?” for his online newsletter Hyperdimensional, he warns that efforts to over-regulate AI seem likely to continue and that artificial intelligence regulation might become “just another … left-wing cause.”
A former AHI undergraduate fellow and a research fellow at George Mason University’s Mercatus Center, Mr. Ball calls the legislation “a sweeping bill … biting off more than it could chew.” While social media chatter gives the impression that Governor Gavin Newsom has now jettisoned AI regulation, his veto message “was clear about his intention … for California to serve as America’s main AI regulator if need be.”
One possibility would be heavy regulation of people’s uses of artificial intelligence, more than the product itself. In extreme form, it would involve “government-created rules for every industrial use of AI … this would obviously be premature.” In a less extreme scenario, explains Mr. Ball, California might require that “impact assessments” be made for “high stakes” uses of AI. “In contemporary American policymaking, ‘high stakes’ often means practically everything valuable.”
Mr. Ball also worries that artificial intelligence safety activists, angered by Newsom’s veto, might double down on even stronger regulation than SB 1047 would have imposed and rely on political pressure more than arguments. “We should not assume that the AI transformation ‘goes well.’” The important strategy is to question “whether and to what extent the government’s involvement helps or hurts.”
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