The dark side of AI regulation is unrestrained government control - The Washington Post

The authors' central claim is that any regulation effective enough to slow the development of artificial intelligence would require an extraordinary expansion of the government's surveillance and investigative powers.

In the authors' account this is a structural consequence rather than an incidental side effect: slowing progress at the technological frontier would require agencies to monitor, investigate and enforce across a field that is broad, fast-moving and largely in private hands. Egorov and Sonin write that history shows the risks of such an expansion of state power might outweigh the risks of unregulated development.

The essay notes that momentum is building in the United States for a regulatory framework that would slow progress at the technological frontier. The authors frame their argument as a caution about the costs of that momentum. The excerpt states the argument at a general level: it names no specific bill, agency or legislative proposal, and it does not set out the historical cases on which the claim about expanded state power rests.