Guess what, lawmakers? The Runtime Is the Regulator

Maybe it's just me but this post is written in a confusing way.

I think the argument here is:

- laws are slow

- innovation is faster

- if you let laws regulate AI you're basically playing catch up

- therefore, let technology regulate AI in real time: once a decision is made, it is immediately valid.

From an efficiency standpoint this may make sense, but the important question is: who makes the decisions that are then implemented in software?

AI platforms are generally provided by private operators, so there are two actors here: the State and the AI provider.

Assume the State decide to completely deregulate AI.

Let's take deepfakes. As long as an AI provider makes money out of deepfakes, and they do not fear sanctions (remember, there is no government regulation), why would they ban them? Reputation risks? Well, there are many AI providers, so as long as they can produce deepfakes that cannot be traced to a specific AI platform, why bother?

It's one thing to say that laws are slow, quite another to say that democratic accountability and general concerns other than making money should be thrown out of the window in favor of fast but obscure processes.

It is no good saying that "...engineers know how to solve distributed trust problems...." Some engineers do, but much of the code (not only AI, but across all industries) is being written by engineers who do not.