
Challenge: A key aspect of the report that warrants a rebuttal is the discussion on regulation and overall policy. While I concur that "inappropriate regulatory activity would be a tragic mistake", the use of "broad legal mandates coupled with tough transparency requirements and meaningful enforcement" as an example does not provide a clear enough blueprint of an effective policy strategy to address the advent of emerging technologies, and we must clearly call out the need for an agile regulatory framework to keep up with the changes that will be presented by AI.

A great example where innovation has outpaced regulation is the advent of crowdsourced jobs facilitated by technology, such as on-demand transportation services (Uber and Lyft) as well as housing accommodations (AirBnB). In this scenario, many cities and states had to reactively put in regulation to adjust to these technologies to help protect taxi and hotel companies. This area would have been difficult to put regulation into place in advance for, mainly because of a lack of a foresight in the ability of a centralized technology to reduce the barrier to entry allowing a person to effectively rent out their living space or find people to transport between locations. I would argue that the ability to react quickly and put regulation in place for this would outweigh the value of focusing on an overall policy of broad legal mandates not specific to the industry that does not address the micro-level regulations that had to be reviewed due to the technological changes.

Given the potentially large volume of disruptive technologies that will come out of AI-based research and development, there needs to be an agile and flexible regulatory framework that can proactively identify these technologies as they emerge. Once they are identified, governing bodies should collaborate with citizens and industry representatives to identify the areas of economic risk, such as loss of jobs, as well as new legal dilemmas, such as the one posed by the person(s) liable for accidents caused by an AI-driven motor vehicle mentioned in the report. The flexibility provided by such a framework would allow all parties to participate in a structured iterative process that is able to keep up with the changes in the technology as well as the international landscape of AI in our increasingly globalized world so that we do not fall behind in our ability to innovate. 

They do offer a more generalized statement on the subject later in the report:

"Given the current sector-specific regulation of US industries, new or retooled laws and policies will be needed to address the widespread impacts AI is likely to bring. Rather than more or stricter regulation, policies should be designed to encourage helpful innovation, generate and transfer expertise, and foster broad corporate and civic responsibility for addressing critical societal issues raised by these technologies"

In addition to the above they also call for a path towards gaining technical expertise in AI, removing impediments to AI research policy, and increasing funding for said studies.
While these statements do touch on some high level principles that I can agree with, they are far from emphasizing the rapid speed of changes that we may expect to see in the coming years that will be facilitated by AI. Because of this and the normal sluggish pace at which changes in government regulations typically occur, I would argue that they should also be calling for an agile regulatory environment that can quickly adapt to the changes as they happen so that we are not exposed to situations where we are poorly equipped to handle disruption or pursue innovations. 
