Incorrect. Previously at least some lip service consideration to public benefit was given.
Television, for example, had many FCC regulations at its inception to ensure it served in the public interest. This of course devolved over time into nomimal compliance like showing community bulletins at 5am when no one was watching.
You might be somewhat correct with the release of the Internet upon the public in the early 90's, but imagine if common carrier rules were not in effect for the phone lines everyone was using to access the Internet back then. The phone companies would have loved to collect the per-minute charges AOL initially was doing before they went to unlimited. They already had a data solution in place - ISDN - but it was substantially more expensive from what I understand and targeted to business only.
With AI, it's the complete opposite, everything is full steam ahead and the government seems to be giving it its full blessing.
>Previously at least some lip service consideration to public benefit was given
The public benefit here is that all sorts of "compliance" is made cheaper. I can see it already in the construction industry. Stuff you used to hire a firm for you use cheap labor for, they use AI, you have your "one old guy who's engineering license is kept up to date" check it, it gets some tweaks then passes his scrutiny. He submits it. Town approves it because it's legitimately right. High fives all around, three people just did something that used to take a much bigger team. The engineer would have had to decline that job before. The contractor too.
Of course, this all comes at the expense of whoever benefitted from having that barrier there in the first place.
Television, for example, had many FCC regulations at its inception to ensure it served in the public interest. This of course devolved over time into nomimal compliance like showing community bulletins at 5am when no one was watching.
You might be somewhat correct with the release of the Internet upon the public in the early 90's, but imagine if common carrier rules were not in effect for the phone lines everyone was using to access the Internet back then. The phone companies would have loved to collect the per-minute charges AOL initially was doing before they went to unlimited. They already had a data solution in place - ISDN - but it was substantially more expensive from what I understand and targeted to business only.
With AI, it's the complete opposite, everything is full steam ahead and the government seems to be giving it its full blessing.