Regulation Doesn't Need Perfect Definitions: Lessons from Drugs and Nuclear Power
davidmanheim · x · 2026-09-16
Risk researcher David Manheim argues that countries can absolutely regulate poorly scoped things. Illegal drugs, for instance, keep being redefined to cover designer drugs, and nuclear power is regulated in part by restricting all radioactive material, fissile or not. The analogy suggests AI regulation need not wait for precise definitions.
Related event: Manheim: define before measuring—AGI debate will be moot within two years(7 posts)→
More from AGI Musings
- Databases to distributed systems: every systems skill is merging into AI inference and hardware — Abhishekcur · 2026-11-02
- Limitless analogy: smarter people may gain far more from superintelligence — McDonaghMatthew · 2026-11-02
- Hunting for the most concrete "curing cancer with AI" roadmap of 2025 — iskander · 2026-11-02
- Avoiding AI brain rot: Miles Cranmer's lecture on learning with AI — _ScottCondron · 2026-11-02
- Yacine mocks "autonomous research" hype as Naam argues RSI loop needs 5-10x boost to run away — yacineMTB · 2026-11-02
- Vitalik's "post-AI cryptography": pseudonyms are dead, per-action anonymity is in — devanshmehta · 2026-11-02