For the record, "batshit regulations" means things like (from the article):
> Rather than let schools try and improve their quality by bringing in AI tutors, Europe preemptively says that there must be impact assessments, authorized representatives, notified bodies and monitoring.
Funny that opponents of the AI Act seem to implicitly agree that these systems won't survive "impact assessments, authorized representatives, notified bodies and monitoring". They apparently can only work without oversight or accountability.
The issue isn't with the systems not being able to survive those steps, it's how long they take - it's killing inovation and it's one of the reasons Europe stays behind. You can't expect us to have an AI startup boom if every minute thing must be passed through regulators and assessements and representatives (these things take months to years).
I've also had a startup related to compliance in the EU and it's mindboggling how poorly these regulations are actually implemented and checked. It also takes months to set up a meeting with the responsible authorities to clear up any doubts, only for them to tell you that they don't really know either.
Excusing entrepreneurship, we also take way longer to get features like the improved voice capabilities of ChatGPT. This is a smaller thing, but AI has had a major impact on my productivity and I'd rather not be 3 months behind American developers on everything.
I'm all for improving the processes themselves, and increasing the speed at which everything is handled. But the solution to this issue isn't to do away with the regulations and cautious approach completely, it's to focus on the implementation.
As a society, it's insane to let companies market tools in e.g. the educational space that are based on a technology that's still making things up to a considerable degree, without asking them to identify 1) who issues could affect, 2) what issues could affect them, 3) what they are doing to mitigate those issues, and 4) what they'll do if issues to occur. But that's part of this regulation, and this article (and a large part of the opposition) keeps asking for the regulation itself to be repealed.
Why not focus on improving the implementation? You'll find many proponents that would agree with you, and we're not potentially exposing children to bad education, medical patients to bad medical advice, and so on. Arguing against the regulation itself makes your voice far less effective.
This is more of a vent, but I can't focus on the implementation because it has never improved in my lifetime, so I'd rather the government get out of my way.
