Dean W. Ball

There are tons of technocratic AI policy proposals, but little concrete intuitions about the near-term future to motivate those proposals. The result is that the field sometimes feels disembodied, devoid of a concrete vision. Here is what I think is coming.

Today in our respective newsletters, @milesbrundage.bsky.social and I co-author a comment on the EU General-Purpose AI Code of Practice. We try to offer constructive comments as to how this document--which will likely be a standard for frontier AI dev compliance with the AI Act--can be improved.

Hyperdimensional is almost a year old! So I wrote a reflection on the first year, covering the origins of the project, SB 1047, where I erred, the impossibility of controlling technocracy, where I see the project going next, and more. Enjoy!

awesome book, recommended, especially for people thinking about ai

My latest, on the AI export controls generally and the diffusion rule in particular. This regulatory adventure, whatever you think of it on the merits, is a case study in how rules beget more rules—how regulation grows, like a plant or a weed.

A little late, but--my 2025 'lookahead' post is here, covering some of the major AI products, research, and policy I'll be watching this year. I hope you enjoy! t.co/CZdR8zjsFH

Hyperdimensional is almost a year old! So I wrote a reflection on the first year, covering the origins of the project, SB 1047, where I erred, the impossibility of controlling technocracy, where I see the project going next, and more. Enjoy!

I really wish more people criticized my own work, too.

“Since we necessarily underestimate our creativity, it is desirable that we underestimate to a roughly similar extent the difficulties of the tasks we face, so as to be tricked… into undertaking tasks which we can, but otherwise would not dare, tackle.” -Albert Hirschman

America is charging into an AI policy regime that will slow down adoption of AI, shrink model developers’ addressable market, and could deter frontier AI investment. It’s one of the worst ways to regulate AI, it could become a national standard soon, and it’s under-discussed.

If chatbots stay in their current role—assistants I use for random tasks throughout the day—then ads have a negligible effect on their utility. If however chatbots become something like what the ai companies all aspire to—genuine “virtual chiefs of staff”—ads may be ruinous.

Today in our respective newsletters, @milesbrundage.bsky.social and I co-author a comment on the EU General-Purpose AI Code of Practice. We try to offer constructive comments as to how this document--which will likely be a standard for frontier AI dev compliance with the AI Act--can be improved.

The eu ai act should quite obviously be repealed. Unsalvageable.

The EU General-Purpose AI Code of Practice—a document that almost exclusively regulates American companies—came out in draft on November 14. The deadline to submit comments is two weeks later, November 28, aka “Thanksgiving.” You have to admire the passive aggression.