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

The New York Times has now formally reported what anyone with a committee calendar could already deduce: the gap between AI and the people paid to govern it has widened into a 'global policy vacuum.' The models advance; the regulators book rooms. Since a September 4 meeting, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and her commissioners have been left asking what they can actually do about the fast-changing technology. Which is a striking thing for the Commission to be asking out loud, given that its entire brand is careful, considered, comprehensive regulation. No final conclusions were reached.

Instead, more discussions among European leaders are planned this year — meaning the output of a summit about a technology that ships in monthly increments is a diary entry for another summit. Meanwhile, the labs that actually matter have stopped waiting: Google, OpenAI and Anthropic went and built their own standards body with no government in it, voluntary, self-certified, the referee also playing defence. You cannot blame them for noticing that the vacant chair at the table was never going to fill itself. The vacuum is not a malfunction of the system; it is the system's native condition.

By the time European leaders reconvene, the 'fast-changing technology' will have changed again, and the agenda item will still read: what can we do? The honest answer is nothing that arrives before the next release. Von der Leyen's commissioners are not uniquely feckless — every legislature on earth is running the same race against a competitor that does not sleep, file impact assessments or wait for the consultation period to close. The vacuum will be filled, of course — just not by anyone who has to stand for election. One can only assume the models will be invited to the next meeting as stakeholders.