Here’s What a Conservative Approach to AI Regulation Could Look Like
Administrative state expansion raises questions about democratic accountability and economic freedom.
It’s funny how fast some conservatives forget they’re conservatives the moment a new technology shows up. With AI, the default mood in Washington has been either panic or daydreaming about a sweeping new “AI agency” that will surely be captured by the biggest players in five minutes. The better instinct is the older one: use what we already have, fix what’s broken, and don’t hand the keys to a fresh bureaucracy that answers to nobody.
New Republican Times Editorial Board
What does it mean to be a conservative? In many ways, it means understanding that the answers to new problems are often found not in tearing everything down and starting over, but in the traditions, institutions, and legal structures that have already stood the test of time.
Yet that instinct has been strangely absent from the debate over artificial intelligence.
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New Republican Times Editorial Board
It’s funny how fast some conservatives forget they’re conservatives the moment a new technology shows up. With AI, the default mood in Washington has been either panic or daydreaming about a sweeping new “AI agency” that will surely be captured by the biggest players in five minutes. The better instinct is the older one: use what we already have, fix what’s broken, and don’t hand the keys to a fresh bureaucracy that answers to nobody.
We already have law for fraud, theft, defamation, discrimination, and consumer deception. If an AI tool is used to scam seniors, steal trade secrets, or create fake ads that trick voters, that’s not a mystical “AI problem.” It’s a normal problem with a new wrapper. Start with enforcement, not reinvention. Regulators and prosecutors should focus on harms you can name and prove, not on policing models in the abstract because they make policymakers nervous.
That also means being honest about who benefits from heavy-handed “regulation.” It’s often the incumbents. The largest tech firms can afford compliance armies and cozy relationships with agencies. The startup in a garage, or the mid-sized business trying to compete, can’t. Don’t write rules that lock in Big Tech. If Washington insists on building an all-purpose AI rulebook, it will quickly become a permit system that protects today’s winners and keeps challengers out.
A conservative approach should be practical: transparency when AI is used to impersonate real people, clear liability when companies deploy tools recklessly, and smart limits for high-risk areas like medicine and aviation that already have oversight. Then leave room for the rest of the economy to innovate. Treat AI like a tool, not a religion. We can be tough on real misconduct without doing the left’s favorite thing, which is to build a new bureaucracy and call it progress.
Commentary written with AI assistance by the New Republican Times Editorial Board.