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Comment by da_chicken | Hacker News Reader

You're not sure if it's constitutional to regulate the sale of products or services to ensure that they're safe?

Congress has the enumerated right to regulate commerce. This, being an executive order, is not an act of Congress. Consider the agencies you may be thinking of: FDA, FTC, FCC, etc. All have actual laws defining their scope. This is an overreach of the executive.

Product safety for consumer products seems to be directly in the FTC's domain.

No, that would be the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission.

Sure, but it's not like we're waiting for Congress to do that. It's not like the Department of Commerce hasn't been created, or that the Secretary of Commerce doesn't exist in the President's cabinet. The quasi-legislative agencies are not the sole source of regulation in the United States.

Executive orders are also useful as temporary legal framework while Congress works on broader laws. As they say, the Constitution is not a suicide pact. Even if they don't carry the force of law to any relevant quasi-legislative officers, they give businesses a framework to work within while Congress works.

Congress can only regulate commerce between states. If someone trained a model completely in state and then sold it to folks within the state, the commerce clause wouldn't apply.

*Of course, you have to make sure no internet traverses state lines. Better to keep it off the web to be safe.

Growing wheat on your own land for your own use all within one state is regulated as interstate commerce because you didn't buy wheat produced in another state.

https://www.oyez.org/cases/1940-1955/317us111

The explanation is: "Congress may use its Commerce Power to regulate or prohibit activities provided the economic effects of such activities are substantial."

Note that "substantial" is not wrt what an individual does but "what if everyone did that?"

Yes. I'm quite familiar with this blantant misinterpretation of the Constitution. The logic is flawed at its core. What if my friend tells me a joke? I may not go to pay to see a comdeian. That would have nth order effects on commerce as a whole.

Honestly, Filburn v. Whitaker was my biggest wake up call that the US is a complete farce with absolutely corrupt checks and balances.

Couple that with other outcomes like Hylton v. United States, where the SC argued that a clear direct tax was actually a usage tax and not subject to apportionment. Plenty of examples of SCOTUS relabeling an activity to say it's fine when it's in clear violation of the Constitution.

Congress should be in charge of that, they legislate not the president.

You’re being intentionally obtuse and not addressing the point OP made, which is that AI is likely to be interpreted by the courts as a form of expression which makes it protected by the first amendment.

It would be similarly a violation if, say, the sale of newspapers was regulated. I suspect you know this but you want to make a glib Twitter style comment rather than have a real discussion.

No, I'm refusing to be obtuse in claiming that this regulation only about software. It's about selling a product or service that a business claims is performing something accurately and correctly. We all know it's about money. There wouldn't be any interest at all if people didn't think there were billions of dollars to make selling this stuff.

Your right to free speech is not magically absolute. It does not supercede the rights to life, security, and safety. You can't sell snake oil. You can't claim your product does something it doesn't, or that your service does something it doesn't.

Nobody wants to an AI doctor that gets the diagnosis wrong half of the time, or an AI pharmacist that forgets to account for drug contraindications sometimes to be available for sale on the market. Nobody wants an AI self-driving car that rams into a pedestrian without even slowing down. Nobody wants AI load-testing software to forget that steel bolts aren't infinitely ductile.

If you want to bring a product to market, you don't get to just slap a "NO WARRANTY IS EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED" on it because it's software. That never actually worked.

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