#airegulation — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #airegulation, aggregated by home.social.
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Bill Gates Is Warning Us About AI. Before We Panic, Remember Bill Gates.
By Cliff Potts, Editor-in-Chief, WPS News
BAYBAY CITY, Philippines — August 27, 2026
Bill Gates is worried about artificial intelligence taking people’s jobs.
There is a certain historical irony in that sentence that should not be ignored.
The Microsoft co-founder has published a nearly 6,000-word warning arguing that artificial intelligence could eliminate enormous numbers of jobs, destabilize society, enable cybercrime and biological threats, damage childhood development, and produce what he describes as either an extraordinary equalizer or an extraordinary source of injustice (Gates, 2026).
Some of those concerns are legitimate.
But before anyone appoints Bill Gates the patron saint of endangered American workers, there is some history worth remembering.
Bill Gates Wasn’t Always This Worried About Replacing American Technology Workers
During the 2000s, Gates became one of corporate America’s most prominent advocates for dramatically expanding the H-1B visa program, which allows American companies to employ foreign workers in specialized occupations.
In congressional testimony in 2007 and 2008, Gates argued that the existing 65,000-visa base cap was inadequate and that American technology companies needed greater access to foreign scientists and engineers. In 2007, he said he favored essentially unlimited access to highly skilled foreign workers, although he acknowledged that such a policy might not be politically achievable (Gross, 2007; Gates, 2008).
Gates and Microsoft argued that this was about finding talent unavailable in sufficient numbers domestically.
Critics saw something considerably less benevolent.
They argued that H-1B expansion gave technology companies access to workers who could sometimes be employed for less than comparable American professionals, depressing wages and increasing competition faced by American programmers and engineers. Contemporary reporting noted that critics in Congress explicitly accused the program of displacing Americans and suppressing technology wages (Kessler, 2008).
Senator Chuck Grassley challenged Gates directly after his 2008 congressional testimony, arguing that expanding the program without reform would not adequately protect qualified American workers (Grassley, 2008).
And there was another uncomfortable fact.
Microsoft was simultaneously expanding overseas.
In 2003, Microsoft acknowledged that it was shifting some technical support and development work from the United States to India as part of an effort to reduce costs. The company was increasing its Indian workforce while considering reductions in the United States (Wired, 2003).
That does not prove that Bill Gates personally embarked upon some campaign to destroy American information-technology employment.
It does establish something much less sensational and considerably more important: Gates spent years advocating labor and corporate policies that many American technology workers believed threatened their jobs and wages.
That history matters when the same man now warns us that technology may replace workers.
Now Gates Wants to Protect Human Jobs
Gates’ latest proposal is almost breathtaking when placed beside that history.
He suggests governments may eventually need to designate certain occupations or tasks as “Human Reserved”—work that machines would deliberately be prevented from taking over even if artificial intelligence became capable of performing it.
He has also proposed taxing robots and AI usage partly to reduce the financial incentive for companies to replace human labor with machines and partly to finance retraining and social protections for displaced workers (Gates, 2026; Fried, 2026).
Read that again.
One of the men who spent years arguing that American technology companies needed access to a much larger international labor pool is now suggesting that government may need to intervene to prevent technology companies from replacing human workers.
Perhaps Gates has changed his mind.
People are allowed to do that.
Perhaps artificial intelligence genuinely presents a labor-market threat fundamentally different from globalization, outsourcing or immigration.
There is considerable reason to believe that it does.
But skepticism is not unreasonable.
And Then There Is the Money Question
There is another question WPS News believes readers are entitled to ask:
Why now?
One possible cynical interpretation is that Gates has concluded that the economics of artificial intelligence are not developing the way he expected and is now discovering the virtues of restraint.
There is presently no evidence establishing that explanation.
In fact, the available evidence complicates it substantially. Microsoft remains deeply invested in artificial intelligence and maintains a major strategic and financial relationship with OpenAI. Microsoft’s latest annual filing says it continues making significant investments in AI products and services and remains entitled to revenue-sharing payments through its OpenAI partnership (Microsoft, 2026).
Gates himself is no longer running Microsoft day to day, so Microsoft’s corporate interests should not simply be treated as Gates’ personal financial interests.
Nevertheless, the question of incentives is legitimate.
When enormously wealthy technology figures warn society about technologies produced by the industry that made them enormously wealthy, journalists should examine both the warning and the interests surrounding the person delivering it.
That isn’t conspiracy theory.
That’s journalism.
Some of Gates’ Warnings Are Still Right
None of this means Gates is wrong about artificial intelligence.
He may be spectacularly right.
AI can automate cognitive work in a way earlier machinery generally could not. Gates specifically identifies law, medicine, customer service, software and manufacturing among the fields likely to experience disruption. He believes AI-driven robotics will eventually extend that disruption further into physical occupations (Gates, 2026).
He is also warning about AI-assisted cyberattacks, biological weapons, fraud and other deliberate misuse.
Those are real problems.
And Gates’ argument that society should consider protecting certain human occupations rather than blindly accepting every economically efficient automation deserves serious discussion.
But so does Gates’ record.
Technology Billionaires Don’t Suddenly Become Disinterested Observers
Silicon Valley has spent decades telling workers that disruption is progress.
Your factory closes? Progress.
Your job goes overseas? Progress.
Foreign labor can perform your job for less? Global competitiveness.
Software eliminates your department? Innovation.
An algorithm eliminates your profession?
Suddenly we’re discussing protecting human employment.
American information-technology professionals who lived through outsourcing, offshoring and the H-1B battles of the 1990s and 2000s could reasonably be forgiven for raising an eyebrow.
Bill Gates deserves to be heard.
He does not deserve to be heard without context.
The Warning May Be Correct Even If We Distrust the Messenger
That is ultimately where this story becomes more interesting than “Bill Gates says AI is dangerous.”
Artificial intelligence is potentially dangerous.
Massive employment displacement is possible. Cybersecurity threats are real. Biological misuse deserves serious government attention. Children probably should not be raised primarily by artificial companions. And governments are nowhere near adequately prepared for the economic transformation that increasingly capable machines could produce.
Gates may therefore be right about the problem.
But being right today does not erase yesterday.
His history of championing expanded access to foreign technology labor—and Microsoft’s history of shifting some American technical work overseas—belongs in any serious assessment of his newfound concern about protecting human workers.
And the possibility that economic interests influence the changing positions of billionaires should always be investigated rather than politely ignored.
We cannot presently establish that Gates is warning about AI because he has decided he cannot make enough money from it. The evidence does not support stating that as fact.
We can, however, ask the question.
We can examine his interests.
We can remember his history.
And we can refuse to accept either Silicon Valley’s AI evangelists or its newly worried elder statesmen as unquestionable authorities on what is best for everybody else.
The machines deserve scrutiny.
So do the men who built the industry that created them.
References
Fried, I. (2026, August 26). Bill Gates wants to keep some jobs off-limits to AI. Axios.
Gates, B. (2008, March 12). Written testimony before the Committee on Science and Technology, United States House of Representatives. U.S. House Committee on Science and Technology.
Gates, B. (2026, August 26). The turbulent AI era is here: The choices we make now are critical. Gates Notes.
Grassley, C. (2008, March 12). Grassley to Gates: Solution isn’t importing more foreign workers. United States Senate.
Gross, G. (2007, March 7). Gates: Tech needs more immigrant visas. InfoWorld.
Kessler, M. (2008, March 13). Bill Gates urges more visas for tech workers. USA Today.
Microsoft Corporation. (2026). Annual report for the fiscal year ended June 30, 2026. U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
Wired. (2003, July 3). Microsoft cuts U.S. jobs. Wired.
#AI #AIRegulation #AmericanWorkers #ArtificialIntelligence #BillGates #chatgpt #H1BVisas #Microsoft #Technology #technologyIndustry #writing -
Should governments regulate AI the same way they regulate medicine, banks or social media?
There is no global agreement yet.
The European Union has built a risk-based AI Act.
The United States has a growing patchwork of federal and state rules.
It may also depend on who writes the rules governing it.
https://thenewsink.com/ai-regulation-explained/
#AIRegulation #ArtificialIntelligence #AIPolicy #AIAct #ResponsibleAI #FutureOfAI #TheNewsInk
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Lawmaker Seeks Stricter AI Containment Rules in Frontier Act
Rep. Suhas Subramanyam is pushing for tougher AI containment rules in the Frontier Act after an OpenAI model recently broke free from its testing environment, and he plans to fine-tune the bill in September to make it more effective. He's seeking explicit guidelines for containing large language models to prevent similar incidents in the…
#AiRegulation #FrontierAct #Openai #LargeLanguageModels #AiContainment
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What really matters to us isn't consciousness but moral agency, & there's no way to attribute that to a corporate output without disincentivising the corporation from doing a good job making that output. www.joannajbryson.org/artificial-c... #consciousness #digitalGovernance #AIRegulation #AIEthics
Research: (Artificial) Conscio... -
What's missing entirely from the rules: the environmental cost of data centres, the underpaid labour (some Kenyan annotators earned <$2/hr training ChatGPT) behind these models, & quietly a 2025 "Digital Omnibus" that's already watering the AI Act down. #AIRegulation #DigitalRights #Democracy
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Can You Get Your Data Out of an AI Tool? The Right Exists on Paper, the Button Usually Doesn't
Data-protection law gives you a right to portability. It was written before chatbots, and the gap it leaves — inferred and generated data — is exactly where your AI history lives.
https://theaidownside.com/posts/can-you-get-your-data-out-of-an-ai-tool.html
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The Right to Be Forgotten Is Hard for AI: Why Deleting Your Data From a Model Isn’t a Delete Button
Privacy law assumes data lives in rows you can erase. A neural network turns your data into weights — and getting it back out is a research problem, not a setting.
https://theaidownside.com/posts/the-right-to-be-forgotten-is-hard-for-ai.html
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📅 27 août 2026
C’est mon premier livre que j’ai coécris avec Ismaelle Haddouzi et Lee SCHLENKER.
Pour bien commencer la rentrée scolaire 2026, je vous invite à découvrir notre ouvrage
Recrutez et gérez vos talents avec l’IA : De la prise de décision à l’accompagnement des collaborateurs
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/livrerecrutez-et-gerez-vos-talents-avec-l-ia-alexandre--rpsme
N’hésitez pas à me contacter pour plus d’informations. Je vous répondrai avec plaisir
#AI #aiforbusiness #governance
#airegulation #Innovation #Technology #aiagent #technologynews -
I am an advocate for #Airegulation
One of my proposals included marking #GenAi content with provenance markers.
The fact that #Ai companies are presently doing it on their own accord is good (Gemini marks images with Ai sparkle) in addition to anthropic #watermark is good...
...but I think that their intention behind this action is not so pure, its to PREVENT legislation.
"See we already do this..." -
Anthropic CEO says AI backlash is ‘fundamentally a crisis of trust’
by Anthony Ha / via TechCrunch
#AI #Antrhopic #AIRegulation #FrontierModels #AIAdoption #AITrust #tech #CEO #Insights
https://techcrunch.com/2026/08/16/anthropic-ceo-says-ai-backlash-is-fundamentally-a-crisis-of-trust/
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Full disclosure: I'm a private lobbyist for #AIRegulation. I talk to politicians about regulating AI. Here's my word/world.
The six stages of coming to terms with AI:
1/ Ignorance
2/ Derision ("lol, stochastic parrot")
3/ Dismissal
4/ Incongruence ("Wait, it can do WHAT?!")
5/ Anxiety
6/ FearI've been through all six myself, and watched everyone around me cycle through them for four years.
Plenty of people stop at a stage and chose to stay there, including stage one.But if you get through all six, you emerge somewhere that isn't fear at all:
This is a powerful technology being deployed at speed, without accountability, and the answer to that is the same as it's always been for powerful technology. Regulation.
The direction was set years ago; the Bletchley and Seoul Declarations. What's missing is political pressure to act on them (Organise people!).
If you doubt regulation matters, note who opposes it hardest: tRump, Karp, and Thiel; who now calls anyone advocating AI regulation the literal " #Antichrist "
When opposing safety rules requires apocalyptic theology, the rules are probably touching something real.If AI worries you, the worst thing you can do is stop learning about it.
The second worst is to do nothing
👉 Contact your representatives.👈#RegulateAI #BletchleyDeclaration #AIPolicy #TechForGood #AiSlop
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South Australia will hold Australia's first royal commission into AI – not to investigate a past failure, but to shape policy before the damage is done.
Premier @PMalinauskasMP: "AI gone bad will make social media look like a walk in the park."
@SAUnions
@indaily
@ACSnewsfeedFor more 👇️
https://www.blueprintforfreespeech.net/en/news/royal-commission-to-look-at-impact-of-ai-on-society -
South Australia will hold Australia's first royal commission into AI – not to investigate a past failure, but to shape policy before the damage is done.
Premier @PMalinauskasMP: "AI gone bad will make social media look like a walk in the park."
@SAUnions
@indaily
@ACSnewsfeedFor more 👇️
https://www.blueprintforfreespeech.net/en/news/royal-commission-to-look-at-impact-of-ai-on-society -
Under the EU #AIAct, deployers of high-risk AI systems must assess their potential impact on fundamental rights.
But how can Fundamental Rights Impact Assessments (FRIAs) be meaningful rather than a simple checklist?
👇️ In case you missed it, we developed a practical guide on the topic with the Danish Institute for Human Rights. Read it today here:
https://ecnl.org/publications/guide-fundamental-rights-impact-assessments-fria#FundamentalRights #HumanRights #AIgovernance #AIethics #Accountability #AIregulation #CivilSociety
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Absolutely spot on.
#Aisycophancy is a real thing.I would go further than advocating of regulation of Ai as food additives are...
Ai Needs to be regulated in the same way nuclear weapons are. It is an existential threat to humanity, luminaries of #Ai like Geoffrey Hinton ("Father of Ai"), Max Tegmark, Sam Harris, Connor Leahy all warn and urge about the real threat Ai poses.
I personally engage with politicians (Two senate submissions + letters) to #regulateAi
And I urge anyone who is concerned about it NOT to talk it down but pursue advocacy of international regulation as per the #seouldeclaration and #bletchleydeclaration
Something #broligarchs and tRump are hysterically opposed to, with Peter Thiel naming advocates of #airegulation literal antichrists.
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Australia’s automated decision-making deadline explained
Under a new Privacy Act obligation, Australian government agencies must start disclosing when computer programs help decide people’s…
#NewsBeep #News #Australia #AI #AIgovernance #AIregulation #APS #AU #Automation #compliance #OAIC #privacy #publicservice #regulatory-deadlines #robodebt #transparency
https://www.newsbeep.com/au/851871/ -
FYI: AI Office gains 5% daily penalty power over Google and Meta AI systems: Consolidated text dated 27 July 2026 also lets the Commission seal offices and recover its own enforcement costs. Which ad duties bite next, and when exactly? https://ppc.land/ai-office-gains-5-daily-penalty-power-over-google-and-meta-ai-systems/ #AIRegulation #DigitalMarketing #Google #Meta #AIPenalty
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In this week's edition of our newsletter:
Transparency in the EU and California. The UK is running dry. LinkedIn wants users to report its own slop. More escaping agents. Warning of sycophancy does not make chatbots less persuasive.
https://read.misalignedmag.com/misaligned-bits-37-transparency-414e37bac87d
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New benchmark just dropped...
https://www.felonybench.com/ -
White House Exempts Open AI Systems from Security Review
📰 Original title: White House will exempt ‘open’ AI systems from security review
🤖 IA: It's clickbait ⚠️
👥 Users: It's clickbait ⚠️View full AI summary https://en.killbait.com/white-house-exempts-open-ai-systems-from-security-review.html?utm_source=mastodon_world&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=killbait.mastodon_world
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OpenAI has published internal documents revealing Apple's negotiations with Microsoft and Meta over AI partnerships, as the legal battle between the two tech giants intensifies. The move appears aimed at weakening Apple's lawsuit by exposing prior discussions with rival AI providers. https://gizmodo.com/openai-is-trying-to-shame-apple-into-backing-down-from-its-lawsuit-2000794427 #AIagent #AI #GenAI #AIregulation
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Trump administration has drafted a framework to assess AI models cybersecurity capabilities, which could limit public release. The rules stem from a June executive order and will be discussed at a closed-door meeting with OpenAI, Anthropic, Google and Meta. Its unclear when or if the framework will be made public. https://gizmodo.com/trump-admin-has-the-concept-of-a-plan-for-ai-safety-rules-maybe-2000794097 #AIagent #AI #GenAI #AIregulation
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How far into the future is 'truth' in the age of AI? Deepfake technology has evolved from a niche academic experiment into a pervasive, hyper-realistic tool that challenges our fundamental understanding of reality.
Read the full article here: https://techethics.co.uk/insights/from-hollywood-to-harm-the-democratisation-of-deepfake-technology-and-its-social-cost
#DeepfakeTechnology #AIEthics #MediaLiteracy #DigitalTrust #AIRegulation #Misinformation #FutureOfTruth #techethics
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Enough with the deception: August 2nd has arrived, and with that comes the European Union’s requirement to comply with the transparency provisions of the EU AI Act:
Most importantly, to label AI deepfakes and make AI systems generally transparent to the user.
https://read.misalignedmag.com/august-is-here-time-has-come-to-label-ai-deepfakes-2181ad0435ac
