Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D–N.Y.) announced that he has launched a "major effort to get ahead of artificial intelligence." Basically, he plans to impose federal regulations on artificial intelligence (A.I.) technologies soon. Such new regulations will do for A.I. what federal regulations have already done to crop biotechnology: slow progress way down, deny consumers substantial benefits, and make sure that only Big Tech wins, all while not increasing safety or lowering risks.
Let's briefly review the sorry history of agricultural biotech regulation. When crop biotechnology was just taking off back in the 1980s, several hundred companies were vying to create hundreds of new products and get them quickly to consumers. A cadre of anti-biotech activists vilifying "frankenfoods" made wild claims of unknown risks and lurking biotech catastrophes, which succeeded in scaring the public and legislators about the new technology. Fearing that a spooked Congress could overreact, some well-meaning regulators moved hurriedly in 1986 to cobble together already existing pesticide and food and safety laws to erect a clunky biotech crop regulatory system that in large measure persists today. Many hoped that by forestalling ill-advised congressional action, they could help speed crop biotech products to market. The opposite happened.
