The political AI: A realist account of AI regulation

Abstract

This article adopts a political theoretical perspective to address the problem of AI regulation. By disregarding the political problem of enforceability, it is argued that the applied ethics approach dominant in the discussions on AI regulation is incomplete. Applying realist political theory, the article demonstrates how prescriptive accounts of the development, use, and functioning of AI are necessarily political. First, the political nature of the problem is investigated by focusing on the use of AI in politics on the one hand and the political nature of the AI regulation problem on the other. Second, the article claims that by revisiting some of the oldest political and theoretical questions, the discourse on guidelines and regulation can be enriched through the adoption of AGI and superintelligence as tools for political theoretical inquiry.