We don’t imprison humans preemptively based on the capability to commit crime. Why regulate AI that way?

Ion Stoica is a Professor in the EECS Department and the Xu Bao Chancellor Chair at the University of California, Berkeley, Director of the Sky Computing Lab, and Co-Founder and Executive Chairman of Arena, Databricks, and Anyscale. He is also Co-Founder of Conviva.

The Trump administration has reportedly been looking into reviving a Biden-era approach to regulating the release of new AI models, reversing one of its earliest decisions to give the industry free rein. Just earlier this week, reports surfaced that over 60 of President Trump’s allies sent him a letter urging him to take a more hands-on approach to AI, with pre-release testing and approval. Then, on Thursday, Trump abruptly postponed the signing of an executive order that would’ve provided for more oversight – signaling the ongoing debate over AI regulation.  

The approach under consideration, first proposed in 2023, focuses on the wrong target. Like much of the current regulatory momentum across jurisdictions, it focuses on how AI systems are built and how they perform on tests — not on their behavior and impact once deployed in the real world.

We’ve already seen similar initiatives crop up. Consider the European Union AI Act. Under this policy, before a “high-risk” system can enter the market, its developers must complete a conformity assessment documenting that the system meets requirements for accuracy, robustness, and data governance based on its intended purpose, defined up front at the time of classification.

While that act mandates post-deployment monitoring, its center of gravity remains firmly ex........

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