Regulating Artificial Intelligence and Digital Processes More Widely

Abstract

Abstract In this chapter, we focus on a digital innovation which is not confined to a single application such as digital platforms, but on one – Artificial Intelligence or AI – which is in course of pervading the whole of the economy and society, and fully deserves the title of one (or several) general purpose technologies or GPTs. Estimates of its likely economic effects, particularly on productivity and labour demand, remain extremely varied and deeply uncertain. The risks which it imposes on individual groups, or even the whole human race, are still speculative. The European Union passed in 2024 an AI Act which seeks to guard against some of those risks. More prosaically, the possibility of monopolization of the supply of AI, for example by dominance of key inputs such as chips, ‘compute’ or Large Language Models, has receded as rivalry has extended to massive AI investments by several major platform companies, as well as the emergence of inventive western rivals and serious Chinese competitors. Finally, AI pervades even the field of regulation. There will not only be regulation of AI, but also regulation being done with AI, leading to a possible arms race between the AI tools deployed by regulatees and those available to regulators.