A single giant organization, or a single-digit number of megacorps in the space, will have lobbyists who are on a first-name basis with every member of the appropriate congressional committees and relevant executive agencies.
I come from a background of high-trust societies where regulation serves the public good; whereas distrust of "big government" hurts everyone. To quote Francis Fukuyama: "Widespread distrust in a society, in other words, imposes a kind of tax on all forms of economic activity, a tax that high-trust societies do not have to pay.".
I understand, and even agree with the notion that deep societal distrust is unhealthy and problematic, however, that doesn't necessarily answer the question of needing that trust in the first place [to regulate]. Having a company with that much power is in fact harder to regulate, which in turn means we are going to have to trust the public institutions even more to do their jobs.
I don't see why we should put ourselves in a position where we need that kind of trust. Another way to put it is, why burden the government with an unsustainable uncompetitive market? For what?
OpenAI is a for-profit private corporation with a commercial service to offer that has no bearing on the most important concerns the government is elected each year to tackle.
>I don't see why we should put ourselves in a position where we need that kind of trust. Another way to put it is, why burden the government with an unsustainable uncompetitive market? For what?
I'm not sure I follow this exactly, isn't regulation supposed to aid in preventing an `unsustainable uncompetitive market` ?
The market has shown over and over that left to it's own devices, things will not balance out.
> Another way to put it is, why burden the government with an unsustainable uncompetitive market? For what?
Because the societal costs of certain industries' unregulated activities do more harm than the economic cost of doing that regulation.
Despite what the Libertarian Party's pamphlet might say, regulation is invariably reactive rather than proactive; the saying is "safety-codes are written in blood", after-all.
Note that I'm not advocating we "regulate AI" now; instead I believe we're still in the "wait-and-see" phase (whereas we're definitely past that for social-media services like Facebook, but that's another story). There are hypothetical, but plausible, risks; but in the event they become real then we (society) need to be prepared to respond appropriately.
I'm not an expert in this area; I don't need to be: I trust people who do know better than me to come up with workable proposals. How about that?
If you'll excuse my departure from what is normal lexicon for this site, I believe that without pre-emptive regulation on AI technology advancement and mergers the "wait and see" phase quickly becomes a "fuck around and find out" phrase.
Regulatory bodies have long been behind on understanding of technology, for example for the first few decades of world wide web advancements (and I would argue even now). I don't think we can afford a reactionary lag time with a technology capable of so profoundly transforming our societies.
I hope we can nudge the developments in a positive direction before there is an all-out AI arms race. I understand the nuances in balancing regulating your own country's AI efforts with making sure you are not outstripped. Perhaps we need something akin to the international treaties dedicated to avoid a colonization dash of outer space.
I'm well aware of the common usage - try to turn your perception to see how it applies here in the abstract sense. The ones who believe no regulation is necessary will be delivered the finding out through brilliantly and hilariously malicious agents.
> I come from a background of high-trust societies
You mentioned the concept of 'high trust societies'. Assuming you are referring to one or the other, how long ago did Western European, or East Asian countries transition from authoritarian, anti-democratic regimes to being regarded as high trust societies?
In my opinion, it seems that many of these high trust societies were the exact opposite within living memory. Which would make me even more skeptical and cautious, not more trusting.
The US might get flak for our system, but it has been around and survived world wars, civil wars, etc. Our inherent distrust of "big government" has a track record of preserving a functional democracy longer than any other system. And the outcome has been a highly competitive and successful economy that hasn't been replicated elsewhere.
I think most of that can be attributed based on the land locked neighbors, no state actors neighboring the US have malicious intent ( eg. Russia, China, Iran, ...)
There's a lot of truth to that, but success can be measured in different ways. Other democratic, capitalist-leaning countries have much less economic inequality. To them, that's a feature, not a bug.
The US economy of today is nothing like the US economy of the 50's and 60's where working class people could own homes, had stable jobs and could afford healthcare. To treat it like the same consistent "system" throughout the past is missing a lot of nuance.
The way economic inequality is trending today, this will all end very badly IMHO.
Edit: By total coincidence, this relevant TED talk is now on the second page of HN -
