Comment by 0xDEAFBEAD
3 hours ago
It is a far-fetched scenario given the tremendous number of eyeballs on the AI industry.
"...classic regulatory capture takes time, it’s a process of erosion rather than a battle, it happens in the shadows, in the backrooms, away from the public’s eye. As Culpepper argues in Quiet Politics and Business Power, business power goes down as political salience goes up. Regulatory capture and lobbying does a good job explaining why roasting coffee beans was defined as “domestic manufacturing”, thereby lowering Starbuck’s tax rate by 2%. It does less well at explaining big cross-industry issues the public cares about such as environmental regulation or race and gender discrimination regulation."
https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2026/09/wh...
A lot of these AI big shots were concerned about risk even before they started their current companies. Occam's Razor says they are expressing concern because they are still concerned.
It's not regulatory capture because look over here: I've invented a new term "classic regulatory capture" which involves only those historical incidents that are not like this.
This is by definition not "classic regulatory capture" a term that I have borrowed to cover things that are not this.
Whenever someone brings up "regulatory capture" I shall change the topic to "classic regulatory capture" which by definition cannot be this.
Very interesting quote.
Monty Python sketch:
"You, sir, are a duck."
"Classically, that would not be the case, my dear fellow. A classic duck would walk like a duck and talk like a duck. I regret to inform you that I do neither."
"Ah! A classic duck, you say? Well, that’s an entirely different bird, sir. Entirely different."
* * *
"AI politics is now loud–precisely the environment in which Culpepper predicts business power will be weakest. A mature industry can bend regulation to its purposes through revolving doors, longstanding relationships and obscure rulemaking. An industry under Sauron’s eye has much less power and faces much greater risk that politics will bend regulation to its purposes. Political actors are eager for an excuse to redistribute AI rents away from capitalists and toward favored groups..."
https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2026/09/wh...
This blogpost was written by a big-shot economist btw: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alex_Tabarrok
Usually he blogs from a libertarian point of view, so you would expect him to be fairly vigorous about denouncing regulatory capture, if that was truly the story here.
It sounds to me like he wants you to believe the effective way to lobby for a ban on open source A.I. development is to use the same "classic" methods that someone in the 1950s used to lobby for coffee beans.
Therefore, as they are not acting like 1950s coffee bean sellers, they can't be doing regulatory capture.
That's the only possibly explanation why they don't lobby like coffee bean sellers.
These industries and eras are completely interchangeable.
2 replies →
> Political actors are eager for an excuse to redistribute AI rents away from capitalists and toward favored groups...
The current "favored group" is big-tech moguls, though. Just because the industry is new doesn't mean the people investing in it are newcomers.
eyeballs on an industry that presses the run button and walks away from 10000 gpu cores for months at a time...