✨ My chat (+transcript) with tech policy expert Neil Chilson on regulating GenAI

Washington’s initial thinking about AI regulation has evolved from a knee-jerk fear response to a more nuanced appreciation of its capabilities and potential risks. Today on Faster, Please! — The Podcast, I talk with technology policy expert Neil Chilson about national competition, defense, and federal vs. state regulation in this brave new world of artificial intelligence.

Chilson is the head of AI policy at the Abundance Institute. He is a lawyer, computer scientist, and former chief technologist at the Federal Trade Commission. He is also the author of “Getting Out of Control: Emergent Leadership in a Complex World.”

In This Episode

* The AI risk-benefit assessment (1:18)

* AI under the new Trump Administration (6:31)

* An AGI Manhattan Project (12:18)

* State-level overregulation (15:17)

* Potential impact on immigration (21:15)

* AI companies as national champions (23:00)

Below is a lightly edited transcript of our conversation.

The AI risk-benefit assessment (1:18)

Pethokoukis: We're going to talk a bit about AI regulation, the future of regulation, so let me start with this: Last summer, the Biden administration put out a big executive order on AI. I assume the Trump administration will repeal that and do their own thing. Any idea what that thing will be?

We have a lead on the tech, we have the best companies in the world. I think a Trump administration is really going to amp up that rhetoric, and I would expect the executive order to reflect the need to keep the US and the lead on AI technology.

Chilson: The Biden executive order, repealing it is actually part of the GOP platform, which does not say a lot about AI, but it does say that it's definitely going to get rid of the Biden executive order. I think that's the first order of business. The repeal and replace process . . . the previous Trump administration actually had a couple of executive orders on AI, and they were very big-picture. They were not nearly as pro-regulatory as the Biden executive order, and they saw a lot of the potential.

I'd expect a shift back towards a vision of AI as a force for good, I'd expect to shift towards the international dynamics here, that we need to keep ahead of China in AI. We have a lead on the tech, we have the best companies in the world. I think a Trump administration is really going to amp up that rhetoric, and I would expect the executive order to reflect the need to keep the US and the lead on AI technology.

That emphasis differs from the Biden emphasis in what way?

The Biden emphasis, when you read the executive order, it has some nice language up top about how this is a great new technology, it's very powerful, but overwhelmingly the Biden executive order is directed at the risk of AI and, in particular, not existential risk, more the traditional risks that academics who have talked about the internet have had for a long time: these risks of bias, or risks to privacy, or risks to safety, or deepfakes. And to be honest, there are risks to all of these technologies, but the Biden executive order to really pounded that home, the emphasis was very much on what are the problems that this tech could cause and what do we as the federal government need to do to get in here and make sure it's safe for everybody?

I would expect that would be a big change. I don't see, especially on the bias front, I don't see a Trump administration emphasizing that as a primary thing that the federal government needs to fix about AI. In fact, with people like Elon Musk having the ear of the president, I would expect maybe to go in the opposite direction, that these ideas around bias are inflated, that these risks aren't really real, and, to the extent that they are, that it's no business of the federal government to step in and tell companies how to bias or de-bias their products.

One thing that sort of confuses me on the Elon Musk angle is that it seemed that he was — at least used to be — very concerned about these somewhat science-fictional existential risks to AI. I guess my concern is that we'll get that version of Musk again talking to the White House and maybe he says, “I'm not worried about bias, but I'm still worried about it killing us all.” Is there any concern there, that that theme, which I think seems to have faded a little bit from the public conversation (maybe I'm wrong) that that will reemerge.

I agree with you that I think that theme has faded. The early Senate hearings were very much in that vein, they were about the existential risk, and some of that was the people who were up there talking. This is something that's been on the mind of some of the leaders of the cutting edge of the tech space, and it's part of the reason why they got into it. There's always been a tension there. There is some sort of dynamic here where they're like, “This stuff is super dangerous and super powerful, so I need to be the one creating it and controlling it.” I think Musk still kind of falls in that bucket, so I share a little bit of that concern, but I think you're right that Congress has said, “Oh, those things seem really farfetched. That's not how we're going