In a parallel universe where we have Biden (or Democratic Party) administration, how different do you think the regulations / approach would be for this fast moving and unpredictable technology?

It’s hard not to see this ban as being motivated by retribution for refusing to use the models for spying and autonomous warfare.

Probably using the rule of law in some way? Talking about it in public? Legislating? You know... government type stuff?

Like Biden did for crypto? Oh wait, no he had a backdoor war using the banking system and refused to enact new laws.

Refusing to enact new laws around a thing most people don’t like, don’t want, and don’t care about (oh and is used for scams often) is quite different than a secret back door war.

The crypto "industry" had a series of multi-$B scams, seems like strong regulation would be called for. On the other hand, Trump executed a rug pulling token for himself and his wife days before his 2nd term and sells pardons to fraudsters and money launders. I know that inspires confidence.

Yes you’re right. Paying off POTUS’s family through a series of pump and dump schemes is much better than what Biden did.

They at least wouldn't depend on how extensively you publicly glaze the President.

There is not a single chance this would have happened under that admin. Not one single chance.

They probably would have been in line with Executive Order 14110, the Biden administration's detailed description of a principled approach to regulation of the AI industry. It would have been aligned with the Trump administration's stated goals as well, but a coalition of rich VCs successfully bribed him to rescind it as one of his first acts in office, because the primary principle of Trumpist government is that people who pay Donald Trump a lot of money get what they want.

It doesn’t really matter what party does it

The ideal case is a statutory agency with regulatory authority that sets very clear standards for what model capabilities can and cannot release. Those are set ahead of time and well known by frontier model providers.

Most normal regulations are managed through the administrative procedures act process. That’s a legal requirement that involves deliberation and public comment.

I’d argue you could pretty easily enumerate most capabilities that have been obvious concerns for a while. For example, cyber security.

This structure can last decades and reassure players they can operate in the market without rules changing suddenly without warning.

Some kind of sudden, temporary action like this export control tool is legally fragile. Even if sometimes necessary in exceptional cases. But if the administration sees this as a permanent way of working, they won’t be helping anyone (but maybe themselves through grift).

If the administration truly cares about functional regulation (which maybe they don’t) they need a sturdier legal structure that lasts past Trump. Not flimsy edicts that change with the wind

I wholeheartedly agree with what you’re saying in general. I do wonder though, given how rapid advancements in AI are occurring, if even an agency with statutory authority would be able to establish a predictable regulatory environment, let alone do so while maintaining a lengthy public comment period and a whole of government approach. There are obvious flaws with the current administration’s approach to, well, almost everything. But I’m not sure if this is even a tractable problem with the governance structures we have been employing over the last 50 years.

Nothing being talked about with Mythos wasn’t a known AI risk 12 months ago. Those rules could have been established to guide frontier labs.

But yes crazy things happen. Maybe it won’t catch everything.

The right answer are giving the govt / this agency explicit legal, short term model pause capabilities to let the rule making process happen if something completely out of band happens. Or let the agency study/approve models prior to release.

Not sudden, unexpected application of export laws.

Yet in this case, for Fable, cybersecurity risks have been well know for some time. A rule created years ago when we knew this would happen could have given frontier labs and the market predictability.

[deleted]