AI regulation
AI regulation is the body of law and policy governing how AI systems may be developed and deployed, aimed at protecting citizens' rights and managing risk. It sets boundaries on what companies and governments may and may not do. A clear example is banning real-time facial recognition used to track or identify people in public spaces – a capability that is technically straightforward today but that regulation can and does restrict on civil-liberties grounds.
The European Union’s Artificial Intelligence Act is an early landmark, among the first laws to establish guidelines for the technology. It adopts a risk-tiered approach: some uses are prohibited outright, high-risk uses are subject to obligations such as data quality, logging, and human oversight, and lower-risk uses face lighter requirements.
Regulation must overcome more than technical hurdles. Legislation, safety regulation, and public anxiety about handing control to machines all shape what is deployable, and each pulls in a different direction. As capabilities grow, the laws will need to evolve with them – these are unlikely to be the last word on the subject.
AI regulation sits within the broader disciplines of governance and compliance, which cover how organisations account for and conform to rules of all kinds. It also has a technical complement: AI constitutionalism and related safety approaches shape model behavior from inside the system, where the law shapes it from outside. The two are most effective when they move together – law sets the floor, and technical methods reach higher. Concerns about AI bias and privacy are among the most common drivers of both.