AI needs global rules that won't stifle innovation

The new year begins today with prospects of technology, especially artificial intelligence (AI), shaping the way we work and the way we use our time. The regulators in all the countries must get their acts together and pool their wisdom to evolve a uniform set of laws to manage the transition.
 

After the Second World War, the world was divided into two major blocks led by the United States (US) and the Soviet Union, with the third world not having much say on anything. The countries in the western block, however, decided to co-operate and move towards easier movement of goods, people and capital. In due course, it resulted in the European Union and Euro, its single currency and higher growth rates.

The US also lowered its trade, investment and immigration barriers helping some East Asian countries to pursue export led growth strategy. The advances in electronics helped Japan emerge as a leading economy.
 

In the mid-eighties, the advent of personal computers threw up new opportunities. In the nineties, the collapse of the Soviet Union, the advent of Internet and cell phones, the emergence of World Trade and Organisation and the arrival of China on the global scene as a manufacturing power helped greater integration of various economies and spread of knowledge among the people in almost all regions of the world.

Technology and policy brought in more efficiencies, drove economic growth and lifted millions out of poverty in the US led world order. Since the last few years, however, the global economy has got relatively more fragmented with geopolitical rivalries stifling freer movement of goods, people, ideas and capital.
 

The advent of AI, more pronounced since the introduction of ChatGPT by Microsoft and similar applications by its rivals, now promises to transform the world as the Internet did a few decades back. What is missing, however, is the global cooperation of the sort witnessed in the nineties and the first decade of this century. The world is a lot more divided now as exemplified by the China-US trade war and the economic sanctions against Russia following its invasion of Ukraine.

The global institutions like the United Nations have been weakened by the US and even getting the dispute settlement mechanism at the World Trade Organisation to function properly has become near impossible. The global response to the Covid-19 pandemic was fragmented and even the fight against climate change has not been as impactful as warranted, with many countries, especially the rich ones, not willing to do enough.
 

Like all new technologies, AI also triggers possibilities of tremendous innovation along with fears of the unknown that provoke calls for stringent regulations.  A second reality is the rapidity with which the technology advances leaving the regulators far behind trying to catch up and in the meantime, all and sundry hyping any ill effects, not appreciating that by its very nature, evolution of technology is a process that plays out over a period of time.

A third point is that technology crosses the borders in no time whereas the regulators face the limitation of their influence over smaller geographies.
 

 So, it is all the more necessary that the regulators in various countries quickly collaborate with each other to evolve regulations that do not curb innovation and the benefits of new technologies.