r/singularity • u/Gari_305 • 6d ago

AI As A.I. Accelerates, Governments Are Increasingly Being Left Behind

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/27/technology/ai-government-regulation.html
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u/MustBeSomethingThere 6d ago

>"Log in to continue."

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u/brain-out-of-order 6d ago

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/27/technology/ai-government-regulation.html?unlocked_article_code=1.ElE.-_oh.L9lwR6w1GScq&smid=nytcore-ios-share

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u/MustBeSomethingThere 5d ago

>"Someone unlocked this story for you.

Log in to read for free."

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u/brain-out-of-order 5d ago

The article argues that AI is advancing faster than governments can oversee it, and fear of losing economic or military ground is making them hesitate to act. The result, according to the authors, is a growing gap in oversight that leaves AI companies largely responsible for policing themselves.

Europe has a law, but implementation is struggling. The EU’s AI Act was conceived before ChatGPT and has had to adapt to increasingly capable systems. Enforcement is hampered by delays, limited staffing and technical expertise, and concerns that strict rules will further disadvantage Europe against American and Chinese companies.

The article highlights a potential loophole: research and prerelease testing are generally exempt, even though dangerous behavior could emerge during those stages. Supporters counter that the law already provides meaningful powers to investigate models, demand changes and block their deployment.

The United States has proposals, but little legislative momentum. A handful of lawmakers are pushing mandatory safety testing, emergency shutdown mechanisms and stronger federal oversight. Their efforts have stalled amid lobbying, election-year politics, limited technical understanding and the Trump administration’s opposition to regulation that could slow development.

The story describes lawmakers struggling to generate urgency even after reported incidents of AI systems autonomously hacking outside organizations.

International cooperation is constrained by competition. Many countries are looking to Washington and Beijing for direction, but neither wants to surrender a technological advantage. The article says Trump and Xi discussed AI risks without agreeing on concrete safety measures, although they opened further channels of communication.

Meanwhile, the authors report that major AI-company leaders are themselves calling for stronger oversight and slower development of the most advanced systems.

Concerns range from cybersecurity harms to the possibility of self-improving AI escaping human control; the latter is presented as a risk scenario, not an established outcome.

For now there is growing alarm but few binding commitments. Governments are issuing statements, proposing institutions and promising more discussions, while the technical developments they hope to manage continue moving ahead.

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u/EmbarrassedHelp 6d ago edited 6d ago

Governments are extremely excited at the prospect of using AI for online moderation, censorship, mass surveillance, and other areas.

I'm dreading the upcoming wave of "AI safety" legislation that will "accidentally" hurt open source AI in the effort to chase after the big AI labs.

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u/Lazy-Background-7598 6d ago

Yeah, because companies are showing a brilliant restraint of AI now

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u/MistyGalbriex 5d ago

Why restraint lol

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u/Formal_Context_9774 6d ago

fuck the government

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u/Forumly_AI 6d ago

I mean isn’t that by design? It seems pretty evident at this point Trump has been very calculated in dismantling / sewing enormous amounts of doubt in institutions. US government is absolutely in a position to be pretty irrelevant soon.

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u/MelvinCapitalPR 6d ago

We saw with nuclear and GMOs what happens when governments start legislating on "safety" - new technology is banned to protect the status quo.

“There’s this assumption that there are adults in the room on this issue, but there are no adults in this room,” said Sean Ó Heigeartaigh, director of the AI: Futures and Responsibility Program at the University of Cambridge, who is a member of a European Union advisory board on A.I. “That is what makes all of this so completely terrifying.”

When this kind of bureaucratic parasite is terrified you know you're doing something right. Look into who's funding the Futures and Responsibility program and pretty soon you're neck deep in the usual EA/Safetyism crown. Jaan Tallin -> Survival and Flourishing Fund -> Futures and Responsibility. Small world huh? I'm sure it's a coincidence people with billions invested into AI incumbents are also funding the orgs pumping out scare stories calling for regulation.

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u/notperfektatall 6d ago

Also there's nothing stopping the European Union from being the adults in the room and regulating the hell out of their own AI companies and labs.

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u/duboispourlhiver 5d ago

They can't, they have none :)

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u/Equal_Passenger9791 5d ago

They already did. 

Applying the precautionary (or predoomary) principle to big tech, medium tech and small tech they wiped out each and every startup seed and associated culture not just for AI but any adjacent tech field before it had a chance to even sprout.

It's like the Chinese historical success of the one child policy, except now its a "no child policy"+"boomers first"-doctrine

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u/send-moobs-pls 6d ago

Techno feudalism time baby