Regulatory insights from governmental uses of AI
-
Catherine M. Sharkey
Abstract
Federal agencies have struggled to develop a comprehensive strategy for AI regulation due to the technology’s rapid development, its capacity to act autonomously, and the low barriers to entry and unpredictability of AI developments. Agencies across the federal government nonetheless are experimenting extensively with AI, operating as AI researchers, purchasers, users, and developers. In this Article, we juxtapose questions that agencies face in devising a regulatory scheme for AI with similar questions they have already had to answer in their experience as AI users.
From adjudication to public engagement to law enforcement, federal agencies’ extensive experience integrating AI into their projects and missions can shed light on prudent courses of AI regulation. Moreover, governmental uses of AI can improve the credibility of the government as a regulator, increasing regulated entities’ confidence in the stability and effectiveness of the government’s regulatory schemes.
Governmental uses of AI can inform the “why regulate” question by illustrating aspects of AI-induced market failures such as barriers to competition, information asymmetries, and externalities. Governmental uses of AI also offer lessons that bear on when regulators have enough information to regulate effectively and how to know if they are waiting too long. Finally, beyond informing regulation, governmental AI uses can shape private-sector AI use by catalyzing development of AI tools and by signaling appropriate AI uses and best practices to private-sector AI developers.
© 2025 by Theoretical Inquiries in Law
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- AI, Competition & Markets
- Introduction
- Brave new world? Human welfare and paternalistic AI
- Regulatory insights from governmental uses of AI
- Data is infrastructure
- Synthetic futures and competition law
- The challenges of third-party pricing algorithms for competition law
- Antitrust & AI supply chains
- A general framework for analyzing the effects of algorithms on optimal competition laws
- Paywalling humans
- AI regulation: Competition, arbitrage and regulatory capture
- Tying in the age of algorithms
- User-based algorithmic auditing
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- AI, Competition & Markets
- Introduction
- Brave new world? Human welfare and paternalistic AI
- Regulatory insights from governmental uses of AI
- Data is infrastructure
- Synthetic futures and competition law
- The challenges of third-party pricing algorithms for competition law
- Antitrust & AI supply chains
- A general framework for analyzing the effects of algorithms on optimal competition laws
- Paywalling humans
- AI regulation: Competition, arbitrage and regulatory capture
- Tying in the age of algorithms
- User-based algorithmic auditing
