Artificial Dichotomy: Beyond the All or Nothing Approach to Regulating Artificial Intelligence
Efforts to regulate artificial intelligence (AI) are becoming more bold and more comprehensive. In the headlines lately: U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders’ “Ban Artificial Super Intelligence” Act, California Governor Gavin Newsom’s recently-signed package of AI regulations, and calls from AI leaders to slow down development. Gloom, doom, and absolutism abound.
In the mad-dash to regulate, nuance and thoughtful policymaking seem to fall to the wayside. The reality of AI is that the potential risks and rewards it can produce vary greatly between industries and use scenarios. This nuance matters greatly for innovation. Expansive regulations can reach far beyond their intended targets and impose harmful red tape and restrictions. Instead, the free market allows different fields to refine their practice of AI, rejecting uses that are not helpful and embracing tools that further their goals.
New case studies from the Council on Criminal Justice (CCJ) offer a helpful illustration. Within the narrow field of criminal justice, the risks and benefits associated with AI use differ between tasks and circumstances. CCJ explained their purpose in examining the police use of AI-generated report writing tools, public defenders’ use of general-purpose AI tools, and AI-powered classification tools in state corrections: “they show how agencies and practitioners might reason through concrete AI questions using the framework’s step-by-step structure, responsive to the fact that the same technology may raise different questions depending on variables such as the user, purpose, population affected, data inputs, legal obligations, and available oversight capacity.”
This approach can be extended across industries: understand the needs AI is meeting, the systems it is replacing, and offer guidelines accordingly, regulating harmful uses instead of the technology all together.
The choice for lawmakers, businesses, law enforcement, and beyond is not between AI and humanity. The choice is between using AI as a powerful tool and force multiplier, relying on market powers, existing laws, and targeted intervention only when necessary or rejecting a technology with profound potential and preemptively preventing access to its amazing benefits.
Louisiana is a state modernizing its criminal justice systems, leveraging AI and its economic benefits, and experiencing unprecedented job growth numbers. We cannot afford to reject a technology that holds so much promise for our institutions, businesses, and people. Because an embrace of AI does not mean a rejection of humanity, there is a crucial role for policymakers and stakeholders to play in ensuring that AI is applied in productive ways and given the opportunity to improve and refine over time. The strength of a free-market approach lies in its ability to leave room for useful applications to flourish while addressing harmful uses without sweeping all into the same regulatory net.