Will Biden's new Executive Order on AI stifle innovation?

Google commits $2B to Anthropic, Mistral "the OpenAI of Europe" seeks to raise another $300M

Author

Tara Tan
November 02, 2023

Not too long ago, there were huge fears around the invention of the PC, and the internet. Many wanted to control and curtail the innovation happening in the space, particularly in the open source ecosystem. 

But get this: a whopping 70 to 90% of all modern software today is built on top of free and open source software projects. What would the world look like today if that innovation was curtailed in the 1980s? 

It’s easier to see magic when looking through the rearview mirror to the past. But throughout history, the future is often clouded by fear of the unknown. 

Today we see it in effect in AI. This week, the Biden Administration released an Executive Order on the use of AI, which has come under heavy criticism from the open source community. The Executive Order, they say, focus much more on the imagined risks of AI, and less of the potential benefits of the technology. 

What if at the dawn of the internet — the concern over having computers connected to each other and becoming an all-knowing communications network resulted in regulations that set limits on packet size and speed, or the number of computers that could be connected to the network or to each other?

This is so much less a document of what should be done with the potential of technology than it is a document pushing the limits of what can be done legally to slow innovation.

While the document outlined welcome efforts to upskill and educate workforces on AI, there has been outcry over the Order’s overtly detailed limitations, which puts power in the hands of “Big AI” rather than new entrants. 

Much attention has been focused on the Executive Order’s ultra-specific limits on model sizes and attributes (you can exceed those limits if you are registered and approved, a game best played by large established companies). 

It seems like the US is following a more heavy-handed approach like China and Europe when it comes to regulating AI. India, on the other hand, seems to be taking a wait-and-see approach. 

This Order is about stifling innovation and turning the next platform over to incumbents in the US and far more likely new companies in other countries that did not see it as a priority to halt innovation before it even happens.

I firmly believe in humanity’s ability to harness technology to further human potential. In every new technology advancement, there’s always good use-cases and bad use-cases. In the long haul, it’s always netted out better. As AI continues to develop, every company and country in the world are also eagerly exploring how to leverage AI, a potential, very powerful, lever for growth. It will take a nimble hand to navigate regulation and cambrian innovation— it doesn’t often go hand-in-hand. 

Till the next edition.

Tara

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