The FTC Need Not Worry, the AI Genie Is Already Out of the Bottle
FTC Chair Lina Khan believes it critically important that the Federal Government take a hands-on approach to regulating AI. How would that work in practice? Especially given that AI has been roaming the wild for over a decade.
How does Ms. Khan’s FTC define “AI”? Has the FTC noticed that “AI” has been widely deployed for over a decade now? I can’t think of a company that hasn’t deployed machine learning (ML) models to track and predict usage across various software applications and Internet-based services. Examples include Netflix et al viewer recommendation engines, social media applications, payment & banking apps, and shopping apps to name a view. Every bit of usage data across the above use cases is run through ML models, the outcome of which is typically to provide a targeted ad experience or a product or service recommendation/promotion.
Perhaps it is Generative AI that Ms. Khan refers to? Perhaps Ms. Khan wants to police how Gen AI models collect data? The Gen AI data ingestion process is similar to the manner in which search engines crawl the Internet.
It’s too late for Ms. Khan and the FTC to regulate AI. However, Ms. Khan can take comfort in the fact that various White House administrations and the U.S. intelligence agencies will benefit from Gen AI, as they already have their hooks into all of the “AI” companies that matter. Read Matt Taibbi’s Twitter files to learn more (HERE).