First, a few additions to housekeeping matters I wrote about in the May issue. The 2024 Nominating Committee consists of Damaris Christensen (chair), Bob Keefer, and Bill Brown. Rachelle McCalla will take over as PASTCF’s Facebook administrator: with deep thanks to Margie Peeler for her work as administrator the past several years. The PASTCF Executive Board expressed its enthusiastic gratitude to SciTechⴕ ’s Editorial Board for its extraordinary work on bringing out one (two by now) excellent issue. The Executive Board appointed Hal Breitenberg as Editor; Wes McCoy and Bill Galloway will stay on as Editorial Board members and a search is on for a third member. The annual membership meeting is scheduled for Sept. 17, 2024, with a public lecture by Neil Messer.
This issue of SciTech† is dedicated to AI, so here I take stock of the status of legal regulation of it. Prospects are mixed. In my February column I mentioned the work of the AI Advisory Body of the UN and its Interim Report: Governing AI for Humanity,1https://www.un.org/en/ai-advisory-body which has now been approved. Also, the EU accepted a legal framework for regulating AI. The first phase takes effect August 1; the full law comes into force August 1, 2026. The situation in the US is decidedly less encouraging. California and Colorado took forceful action, but at the federal level there appears to be a preference to limp along relying on existing laws. A Band-Aid at best, but more likely an invitation for chaos and disaster. I recommend White & Chase’s AI Watch: Global regulatory tracker.2https://www.whitecase.com/insight-our-thinking/ai-watch-global-regulatory-tracker
Amid all this we also got hit by the Supreme Court’s overturning the Chevron decision, which held that federal agencies, using their professional expertise, are in the best position to interpret laws that are accidentally or intentionally vague, when writing federal regulations based on those laws. That may set a precedent; we can envision nitwit judges making decisions that ought to be based on science. The case of the drug mifepristone comes to mind. Another blow dealt to science by lawyers and judges.
