Sometimes things become extremely clear.
For a number of years I stated how our governments are completely unable to compete in the digital age. This is rapidly making them obsolete. My view is our government structure is as relevant as feudalism. It is fully outdated.
There were signs of it with cryptocurrency. Some of the actions by governments, particularly the timeline, shows out impotent they truly are. This is only being compounded.
The United States Senate is putting forth a bill called the Content Origin Protection and Integrity from Edited and Deepfaked Media Act (COPIED Act). It seeks to protect artists and authors, a noble cause to say the least.
According to the bill, this also will make deepfakes harder.
Ultimately, the goal is to not allow AI training without the permission of the musician or author.
So let us dig into this to see what we are dealing with.
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Government Impotency On Full Display
This bill is dead on arrival.
By this, I am not referring to the bill itself. It is likely this gets passed and eventually signed into law. The politics of this is not my concern.
What we have is impotency. It is a word that I am purposely using. This bill is dead because it is impotent.
Here is the gist if what is happening:
The bill would require companies that develop AI tools to allow users to attach content provenance information to their content within two years. Content provenance information refers to machine-readable information that documents the origin of digital content, such as photos and news articles. According to the bill, works with content provenance information could not be used to train AI models or generate AI content. Soruce
Did you notice the problem?
This is a bill that is being put forth by the United States Senate. I have no idea what the timeline is on getting it to vote on the floor but that has to be done. Once that is accomplished, the House can take it up (unless a similar version passed which I am not aware of). Presuming it goes through, the President signs it.
How long is that going to take?
Here is the crux of the entire matter: government moves slow. Even if it passes in the next month and is signed into law, notice the start date on the bill. It gives companies up to 2 years.
Do you know what two years is in the AI world? We have to consider that chatbots only emerged 20 months ago. That is less time than is being allowed in the bill from the time is becomes law.
The Digital World Is Taking Over
We are seeing the digital world taking over. There are few who would dispute this. Each day, the Internet get bigger.
The main problem is we have people, artists and authors, who are entering into the digital realm yet are looking for protection from governments that were established in the physical.
This is not going to work.
Of course, after the file sharing situation with Napster, we see how this was the case for at least 20 years.
For governments, the main challenge is they are too slow. There is a reason trading on exchanges is now automated and human traders were replaced. It is also why the volumes on exchanges is at the levels they are. None of that would happen if humans were required to handle things.
Speed is the order of the era. Everything that applies to the digital is getting faster. The idea of exponential is common because that is what happens, especially compared to the physical world. Building with bits is a lot faster than atoms.
Eventually, governance of the digital arena will have to reside there. It is not going to happen through a system that is overloaded with human bureaucracy.
Global Government
Some believe there is a push towards a global (or one world) government. We are, after all, dealing in the age of globalization.
This is certain correct. The concept of national governments being able to reign in global operations is misaligned. However, this is not the true essence of the discussion.
It is true that the digital realm is, by default, global. This is also a problem for governments. However, even an international government, which is going to be erected by (and for) humans, will face the same challenges. Politicians and those seeking power are not about to put machines in charge. They are also not going to open up decisions to stakeholders.
What happens when governments are dealing with entities that do not exist in any manner? There is no way to deal with them. A headquarters does not exist. There is no physical activity in any jurisdiction. Employees are basically zero. Ownership is spread throughout the world, often to a bunch of unknown entities.
It has faced this problem with Bitcoin. That is a network that, thus far, they have failed to take over. Even if they were able to get a hold of that, look at all the other networks that are springing up of similar nature.
We often discuss the concept of the network-state. This is going to keep growing.
This is the age of AI. This is going to affect blockchain and cryptocurrency in ways never imagined. The tendency is for us to separate different technologies. Actually, I believe these are all tied together.
For this reason, what we see in this bill applies to all of crypto. The governments of the world are simply too slow to keep pace.
As things get faster, that system falls further behind.