Smart Policies for Artificial Intelligence

TL;DR

This paper analyzes the current landscape of AI governance, highlighting its informal nature and proposing ways to enhance policy effectiveness by learning from other scientific domains.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive overview of existing AI policies and offers recommendations for improving governance based on cross-domain lessons.

Findings

AI policy is largely informal and decentralized.

Current governance can be more informed and anticipatory.

Recommendations include adopting best practices from other fields.

Abstract

We argue that there already exists de facto artificial intelligence policy - a patchwork of policies impacting the field of AI's development in myriad ways. The key question related to AI policy, then, is not whether AI should be governed at all, but how it is currently being governed, and how that governance might become more informed, integrated, effective, and anticipatory. We describe the main components of de facto AI policy and make some recommendations for how AI policy can be improved, drawing on lessons from other scientific and technological domains.