Birju Shah: Requiring AI audits makes sense. But Illinois legislators got the order of things wrong.

Illinois has become the first state to mandate annual third-party AI audits, via SB315 signed by Governor Pritzker. Birju Shah, in the Chicago Tribune, points out the glitch: they've ordered the inspection before anyone's drawn up the blueprint. It's like demanding a MOT test before deciding what a car is. Splendid.

Shah argues that without technical standards—what constitutes 'safe' or 'fair' AI—auditors will be making it up as they go along, producing reports that carry the weight of law but the clarity of horoscopes. The law requires large developers to cough up for these audits, but nobody can say what the auditors should actually check. So Illinois has created a regulatory Rorschach test: pay a consultant, get a rubber stamp.

The tragedy is that other states, eager to look tough on AI, will copy this template, building a nation of audit-for-audit's-sake. The legislators meant well, but they've built the scaffold without the building. As Shah says, the order is wrong. But when has 'get the regulation out first' ever been about getting it right? Apparently, being first to fuck up is still being first.