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REGULATING_NEWTECH

                                             September 18, 2019

Hypothetically, if we were to conclude                     MORATECH
that we need some additional regulation
of technical innovation, what form might             The exchange recounted
it take?                                             above has problems:
                                                     neither Toyama or the
                                                     /r/Futorology crowd do a
                                                     very good job of making
                                                     their cases.



   Let's start with that analogy to the FDA.
   How do you decide when a new product counts
   as a new technology that needs special
   approvals?  Clearly there's a difference
   between, say, a robot car and that mop with
   the new, new reflex toe-bar head.

       In practice then, this is going to have
       to function something more like the patent         I suppose there
       office-- you can ship the new product with         might be some way
       only a tentative approval (if you like), but       of combining this
       it will take some time for the office to           with the patent
       examine your submission                            office-- maybe
                                                          they would handle
                                                          it: someone needs
                                                          to make a judgement
                                                          on the degree of
                                                          novelty involved,
                                                          and they already
                                                          try to do this.




  Then we might wonder if there's a non-governmental
  solution, ala Consumer Reports.  You let them do
  what seems reasonable to them to evaluate new
  products and make a recommendation, and hope enough
  people pay attention for this to do some good.

      My own feeling: these kind of voluntary
      nonprofit-based approaches always seem
      to lack visibility and influence. What
      would they need to do their job better?
      A new law (or... a new technology?)

             Perhaps some sort of expanded full disclosure laws?
             The way patents were *supposed* to work is to
             obviate the need for trade secrets.  Could expand
             this to apply to internal discussions of
             technical developments?







    Reduce (do away with?) "limited liability": the
    innovator guarantees no negative outcomes, and      A libertarianesque
    fear of penalties is used to motivate a             approach, except the
    thoroughly internal approvals process.              people who call
                                                        themselves libertarians
                                                        never seem interested
                                                        in *increasing*
                                                        corporate liability.



    A volunteer community of early adopters:
    a "coventry" of people who may get benefits
    of new tech, but are also in effect guinea pigs       AMISH
    for the rest of us.  A place where wider scale
    social effects can be observed in quarrentine.




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