AI Governance Has the Mandate. The Machinery Is Another Problem.

Winning the argument for AI regulation meant agreeing that unaccountable AI systems pose risks serious enough to require legal constraint. What it did not mean was agreeing on how to constrain systems that evolve faster than the rules written for them. Laws drafted for one generation of AI systems are already obsolete by the time enforcement begins — in the twenty-five days between November 17 and December 11, 2025, four separate companies released what each called its most powerful model ever built. The EU AI Act's drafters were writing for…