Regulatory Agencies

The authors advise that governments create a digital regulatory agency charged with following developments in AI and conducting studies on topics such as safety, national security, effects on labor, and any other important issue, with a mandate to consider the impact of regulations on competition. Such a regulatory agency could be tasked to review mergers, alliances, investments, and contracts between parties in the AI stack.

Hadfield and Clark propose "regulatory markets" as an alternative to both traditional government regulation and industry self-regulation, addressing the twin challenges of governments' technical deficits and industry's democratic deficits. Under this model, governments would set outcome-based requirements (either metrics-based or principles-based), license private regulators who compete to provide regulatory services, and require AI companies to purchase regulatory services from these licensed entities. The authors argue this approach would drive investment in regulatory technologies that governments are unlikely to build themselves, while maintaining democratic accountability through government-set objectives and licensing standards. Private regulators could operate at global scale by obtaining licenses from multiple jurisdictions, potentially threading the needle between diverse national regulatory requirements and the borderless nature of AI deployment.

As part of the U.S. AI Action Plan, the AI Workforce Research Hub is being established under the Department of Labor (DOL) to spearhead a federal effort evaluating AI's effect on the labor market and workers. In partnership with the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) and the Department of Commerce (DOC), the Hub will produce ongoing analyses, engage in scenario planning to model various levels of AI impact, and create actionable insights to guide future workforce and educational policies.

The AI Workforce PREPARE Act establishes an AI Workforce Research Hub under the Department of Labor to implement the White House's AI Action Plan. The legislation enhances DOL's authority to hire AI experts, improves AI-related questions in federal surveys, and strengthens the Bureau of Labor Statistics' occupational projections. The Hub would convene researchers, technical experts, business, and labor representatives to improve data collection on AI's workforce impacts, while conducting prize competitions to better understand AI adoption patterns and how AI systems augment or automate tasks across occupations.