We Watched Social Media Spiral Without Rules. Why Are We Letting AI Follow?

I remember sitting in meetings in 2008, trying to explain to executives why we needed policies around Facebook marketing. “It’s just a website,” they’d say. “What’s the worst that could happen?” Well, we found out, didn’t we? Cambridge Analytica, election interference, mental health crises, congressional hearings - the whole mess that we’re still cleaning up today.

Now here we are, watching artificial intelligence follow the exact same trajectory, and somehow we’re all acting surprised. The current landscape of AI regulation mirrors exactly what we saw with social media fifteen years ago, and I’m not sure we can afford to learn these lessons the hard way twice.