Between Big Brother and Digital Anarchy: AI Regulation Needs Common Sense, Not Chaos

Christopher J. Kouzios; AI Strategist, Disruptor, and Motivated Father with Access to Far Too Much Advanced Technology.

Not a Fan of Big Brother. But Also Not a Fan of Chaos.

I’m not a fan of Big Brother. Never have been. But I’m also not cheering for the chaos of little siblings running around “whizzing in each other’s corn flakes”—whether out of fear, ego, or ignorance. That’s where AI regulation is headed if we’re not careful. To paraphrase (or para-source) someone in the field I respect very much: A patchwork of regulations helps no one. It’s the Internet, folks.

Self-Regulation Is a Fantasy

We’ve already seen what self-regulation looks like—and it doesn’t. Anthropic, among others, has shown us that promises of internal guardrails are not enough when the stakes are this high. Guardrails certified, audited, and tested with extreme rigor by reputable companies still fall short. Public safety, elections, national security, and basic economic trust are too important to leave to a blog post, an “X” war, or whichever way the wind is blowing this election cycle—forget about corporate execs chasing bags of money.

We Need a Dual-Lens Framework

This doesn’t mean I’m advocating for a heavy-handed federal AI czar. States absolutely need the power to check federal decisions—but the reverse is also true. This isn’t unlike the challenge of managing the Internet: multi-jurisdictional cooperation, not fragmentation, is what makes it viable. K.I.S.S.

Slow Down. Use What We Have.

I’ve been saying this for over a year: slow down and learn to use what we have to the fullest. Move cautiously but optimistically forward. Take full advantage of the tools we’ve already built. Focus on deploying responsible AI, not just fast AI. In the race to dominate this space, we’ve skipped the part where we define what “responsible” even means.

Once again, I find myself quoting the SEALs: Slow is smooth. Smooth is fast.

Bureaucracy Has a Role—Yes, Really

There’s real opportunity here for a common-sense framework. Non-partisan—or at least post-partisan, quasi-partisan, or even (gasp) cooperative. Bureaucracy isn’t a bad word when it’s used to force collaboration—which, ironically, is the perfect use case for this kind of public infrastructure. Let states and the federal government build meaningful guardrails. Or at least agree on what oversight should look like.

Final Thought

If government has any role here, it’s not to control AI. It’s to make sure fear, profit, or paralysis don’t end up controlling us.

Maybe you should put a SEAL in charge.

Reference: This article was inspired by the recent AP story on state-level moratoriums and the broader AI governance debate: States propose AI moratoriums while Congress stalls on regulation (AP News)