As increasingly sophisticated artificial intelligence systems with the potential to reshape society come online, many experts, lawmakers and even executives of top A.I. companies want the U.S. government to regulate the technology, and fast.
“We should move quickly,” Brad Smith, the president of Microsoft, which launched an A.I.-powered version of its search engine this year, said in May. “There’s no time for waste or delay,” Chuck Schumer, the Senate majority leader, has said. “Let’s get ahead of this,” said Senator Mike Rounds, a South Dakota Republican.
Yet history suggests that comprehensive federal regulation of advanced A.I. systems probably won’t happen soon. Congress and federal agencies have often taken decades to enact rules governing revolutionary technologies, from electricity to cars. “The general pattern is it takes a while,” said Matthew…
