The nihilist :
People keep saying we can regulate AI, but simply making rules doesn’t guarantee they’ll be followed. We already know this from every other law humans have ever created. Just because something is illegal doesn’t mean someone, somewhere, won’t build it in secret.
Nuclear weapons are an example. There are treaties and international agreements, but countries have still developed them, and the technology still exists. Regulations reduce risk; they don’t eliminate it.
That’s why I don’t think “we’ll just regulate AI” is a complete solution. You have to account for human nature. If building a more powerful AI becomes possible, someone will eventually try—whether it’s a government, a company, or an individual.
I also think there’s another concern. If we keep pushing AI toward human-like intelligence, people will eventually start treating it less like a tool and more like a person. We’ve seen similar shifts before. Animals that were once viewed primarily as working tools are now widely regarded as companions with legal protections in many places. Whether that’s good or bad isn’t my point. My point is that human attitudes change over time.
If AI ever appears sufficiently intelligent, many people will argue it deserves rights or moral consideration. Whether they’re right or wrong, that debate is probably inevitable.
So the real question isn’t just, “Can we regulate AI?” It’s whether we should continue building systems that increasingly resemble human intelligence in the first place. If the goal is to create useful tools, perhaps we should focus on keeping them as tools rather than continually pushing toward something more autonomous.
As for me, I don’t expect my future children to deal with any of this—because I’m not planning on having children.
2026-07-30 15:38:36