It's a commonplace among Silicon Valley VCs that introducing a new product too early is worse than arriving too late. They wouldn't get an argument this week from EU negotiators, who are facing what looks like a third rewrite of an AI Act released much too early in pursuit of the vaunted Brussels Effect. Mark MacCarthy explains that negotiations over an overhaul of the act demanded by France and Germany led to a walkout by EU parliamentarians. The cause? In their enthusiasm for screwing American AI companies, the drafters inadvertently screwed French and German AI aspirants.
Mark is also our featured author for an interview about his book, "Regulating Digital Industries: How Public Oversight Can Encourage Competition, Protect Privacy, and Ensure Free Speech" I offer to blurb it as "an entertaining, articulate and well-researched book that is egregiously wrong on almost every page." Mark promises that at least part of my blurb will make it to his website. I particularly recommend it to Cyberlaw listeners who mostly disagree with me – a big market, I'm told.
Kurt Sanger reports on what looks like another myth about Russian cyberwarriors – that they can't coordinate cyber and kinetic attacks to produce a combined effect. Mandiant says that's exactly what Sandworm hackers did in Russia's most recent attack on Ukraine's grid.
