Hosting Sunak in the White House this evening, Biden is expected to accept an invitation on his team’s behalf to attend an AI regulation summit in London in the autumn. There are three things to note about Sunak’s push to make the UK a global AI regulation hub: First, AI use and abuse is expanding so fast that regulation ideas contemplated months rather than weeks from now may come too late. Second, while it’s true the UK is relatively AI-savvy and has a lot of lawyers, the idea that the US and EU will outsource the writing of AI rules to London is far-fetched. Third, remember autonomous driving? A pattern is emerging in which the UK falls behind on the doing and tries to play catch-up as a regulator. The social equivalent is the guest who flounces out of a party and returns to tell everyone to stop smoking. Suggestion: read the room.
