It has been suggested that regulation of GAI by government will impair US national security because “China is ahead of us and will invent and distribute and in fact utilize better AI and hamstring US intelligence.” This argument seems far-fetched, particularly since China is ahead of us–in restricting its GAI development to adhere to the Communist Party Platform and not allow any creativity.

But what are the likely areas of future US governmental regulation?

At the Bar Association meeting, the lawyers suggested the following approaches to new laws:

1. To avoid breach of privacy, prohibit systems from collecting or storing information that is not core to the business of a given company.  For example: you are selling perfume, why do you need the height and weight of the customer?
2. Grant a private right of action for injured consumers to sue companies who use GAI to harm the consumer.  The government will be swamped with work in this area, private litigants can help.  Class actions create economy of scale by which consumer rights can be asserted.
3. The FTC currently prohibits “unfair trade practices.”  Define “unfair” for GAI.
4. Require developers to search out bias in the data being sued to train the GAI systems.

Finally, today’s New York Times carried an article reporting on the suggestions of Microsoft President Brad Smith, who requested government laws covering the following:

1. A “brake” system to slow down or stop AI programs that are doing harm

2. Clarify obligations of systems developers.

3, Place notices on images and videos if they are machine-generated.

4. Require a government license for developers to release “highly capable” AI systems, which would require follow-up policing of the use of those systems to find abuses.

None of these proposals address the risk of gross misuse of GAI for improper purposes by crooks, politicians or dictatorships.  A crime is a crime, I guess, so if thieves steal by use of GAI and you can prove it, then we are good.  But when politicians cheat, the freedom of political speech has created a world in which control is very difficult.  And, by definition when the government misuses GAI it is difficult fully to trust government law to halt that practice.