
AI, America and the rest of the world. Source: Shutterstock
By Peter Clarke
What’s at stake:
The future of the technology-based society and the world’s super-power landscape hang in the balance. A belief that control of AI development could determine winners and losers for decades has driven US bureaucrats to lay down an interim final rule (IFR) that seeks to control global access to AI technology. But in a globalized era, it is not clear that such measures will work. They may even be counterproductive.
One of the last acts of the Biden Administration was to issue yet another export control ruling – an interim final rule (IFR) – on AI chips, published on January 13, just days before the inauguration of President Trump.
This has not been debated in the US Congress, as the Department of Commerce has the authority to issue and enforce export control regulations under existing laws.