Regulating artificial intelligence: Proposal for a global solution

With increasing ubiquity of artificial intelligence (AI) in modern societies, individual countries and the international community are working hard to create an innovation-friendly, yet safe, regulatory environment. Adequate regulation is key to maximize the benefits and minimize the risks stemming from AI technologies. Developing regulatory frameworks is, however, challenging due to AI's global reach, agency problems present in regulation, and the existence of widespread misconceptions about the very notion of regulation. This paper makes three claims: (1) Based on interdisciplinary insights, we show that AI-related challenges cannot be tackled effectively without sincere international coordination supported by robust, consistent domestic, regional, and international governance arrangements. (2) Against this backdrop, we propose the establishment of an international AI governance framework to spearhead initiatives to create a consistent, global enabling regulatory environment, which is necessary for the successful and responsible adoption of AI technologies. To facilitate the practical implementation of our recommendation, we provide a simplified impact assessment on regulatory architecture and governance design options, appropriate to the scope of the paper. (3) We draw attention to communication challenges, which we believe are underestimated barriers hindering contemporary efforts to develop AI regulatory regimes. We argue that a fundamental change of mindset regarding the nature of regulation is necessary to remove these, and put forward some recommendations on how to achieve this.