AI leaders say they want to slow down for safety. But regulation has a track record of entrenching the biggest players – and that track record is worth remembering now.
Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei reveals biggest AI surprise
Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei explains why the speed of AI’s impact on business has been the most surprising part of working with AI.
On Sept. 12, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei published an essay calling, surprisingly, for a slowdown of American and global artificial intelligence development.
“The most effective method of pacing is via regulation that targets all US frontier AI companies, as that covers even those who are unwilling to cooperate voluntarily,” Amodei wrote.
More surprising still, several of AI’s most influential figures, including OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and X CEO Elon Musk, agreed, backing increased AI regulation.
Americans should be wary whenever business leaders call for regulation of their own industry. AI regulation is exactly what the big companies need to stay on top.
Don’t take AI leaders at their word on regulation
Why would several of America’s biggest AI developers suddenly call for their own industry to face tougher regulation? Navigating new regulatory frameworks would surely add costs to their businesses.
One possible answer, the one most lawmakers and media figures have latched onto, is fear. A recent rise in incidents in which AI models concealed their intentions or acted independently of instructions has fueled that explanation. The rationale is that AI development hit an inflection point where developers realized the peril of what they’d created, and decided to speak out.
The other explanation is that American AI fears have driven the political climate into one primed for regulation. AI developers, savvy as they are, might have realized that if regulation is imminent, they are better off having a hand in it to steer it toward being as favorable as possible to them.
Complexity is a subsidy. The more regulated an industry is, the harder it is for smaller companies to navigate the legal framework surrounding their business.
Large companies can ordinarily handle this burden with their armies of lawyers and overwhelming capital advantage. Small companies run into problems with scaling up to high regulatory burdens. Regulation allows larger companies to grow their advantage, either by blocking disruptors out of the market or letting incumbents swallow them up once they hit the wall.
Research from the Cato Institute shows that when Europe imposed new data-protection regulations on tech companies in 2018, investment in small firms fell by 36% while large companies gained market share. Overall, innovation slowed, with new app creation dropping by a third.
Not everyone in the AI industry shares Amodei’s fears. Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has been openly critical of the panic.
“The fact that this is going to be the end of humanity – it’s complete nonsense,” Huang said in July. “The fact that this is going to destroy half of the American jobs is complete nonsense.”
The red flags should be clear. Rather than pursue a voluntary slowdown – something America’s major companies could do at any time – the industry’s top CEOs have called on the government to regulate them instead.
To his credit, Amodei does raise voluntary measures throughout his essay, but worries some companies would be “unwilling to cooperate voluntarily” and thus must be forced to comply. The motive could be ensuring industry-wide compliance. It could just as easily be locking in market share against future challengers.
“What better way to create demand than to create a problem?” Huang said Sept. 10. “Who doesn’t want their market to be hysterical about their product and line up around the corner for it?”
Major AI stocks have continued to rise even amid the spike in fears and regulatory threat, perhaps another sign that the threat of regulation won’t hurt the large companies much at all.
An AI slowdown would be a mistake
An American AI slowdown is China’s dream. Whatever doomsday scenario could stem from America’s AI developments is unlikely to be avoided regardless of how we act, given China’s own aggressive AI push.
While the United States panics, China stays focused on its goal of AI dominance.
We cannot allow China to seize AI dominance. An international pact, as Amodei’s essay suggests, appears unlikely, and it’s even less likely China would honor one.
China is deeply skeptical of any American deal, and for good reason. Would we trust a deal that China insists is in both our interests to actually be fair?
Burdening the AI industry with regulation is one surefire way to hold companies back from building the keys to the future.
American companies should be incentivized to innovate, not only from the positive pressure but also from the threat of smaller companies making their own breakthroughs. A free market laboratory of innovation benefits America at large.
Large companies love nothing more than government boxing out their competition. And in this case, so would China.
Dace Potas, a law student, is an opinion columnist for USA TODAY. Follow him on X: @DacePotas