JD Vance's Good Counsel on AI

"Sometimes you have to speak hard truths to friends.

So JD Vance did Tuesday at a Paris artificial intelligence summit, where he warned allies that excessive regulation would snuff out innovative startups and help the Chinese.

The contrast couldn't have been sharper with the lecture Kamala Harris delivered two years ago at a global confab about the need to strengthen "AI safety." She meant shackling AI developers with regulation like Joe Biden's executive order directing federal agencies to review AI models that pose a "serious risk." Mr. Vance stressed "AI opportunity."

"To restrict its development now would not only unfairly benefit incumbents in the space, it would mean paralyzing one of the most promising technologies we have seen in generations," he said. Heavy-handed regulation like the Biden order would risk producing a Big Tech-government duopoly of control that would squeeze out startups and smaller companies. Recall AT&T's dominance in the emerging telecom era a century ago.

As Mr. Vance noted, bigger companies can better manage regulatory burdens and lobby government for rules that handicap smaller rivals. "By preserving an open regulatory environment, we've encouraged American innovators to experiment and to make unparalleled R and D investments," Mr. Vance said. The U.S. goal is to ensure "American AI technology continues to be the gold standard worldwide and we are the partner of choice for others."

The Biden-Harris crowd gave barely a thought to how its heavy-handed regulation would hamstring American companies. Chinese startup DeepSeek underlines that small players can challenge OpenAI, Google's DeepMind and Meta's Llama.

U.S. leadership in AI isn't assured. One risk is that Europe, India and other countries deploy Chinese models that the Communist Party can use for malign purposes. DeepSeek censors its responses to comply with Communist Party speech controls. It also gathers data on users, similar to what TikTok collects.

"Partnering with them means chaining your nation to an authoritarian master that seeks to infiltrate, dig in, and seize your information infrastructure," Mr. Vance said. "Should a deal seem too good to be true, just remember the old adage that we learned in Silicon Valley: If you aren't paying for the product, you are the product."

Mr. Vance also chided the Europeans for their "massive regulations" that harm America's "most productive tech companies" like Apple, Google and Amazon. His defense of U.S. tech companies is a welcome contrast to Biden officials who ganged up on them with European regulators.

The VP warned that Europe's climate policies chase the "reliable power out of their nations" needed for AI. This will make it harder for European businesses to compete. He rebutted concerns that AI will "inevitably automate away our labor force." Most AI applications "involve supplementing, not replacing, the work being done by Americans," he noted.

America is poised to lead a "new industrial revolution," he said, and productivity improvements will benefit workers. Mr. Vance might tell his union friends this, too." [1]

1,  JD Vance's Good Counsel on AI. Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y.. 13 Feb 2025: A14.