Gavin Newsom signed an executive order to regulate artificial intelligence. The governor of California believes he can stop technology with a signature. He cannot.
The order aims to address AI fears. Which fears exactly? The one where ChatGPT writes a better campaign speech than his staff? The one where an algorithm realizes his policy platform is just vibes and hair gel? He didn't specify. He said "before it's too late" like he's in a Michael Bay movie where the countdown clock has three seconds left and someone needs to cut the red wire.
Other 2028 Democratic presidential hopefuls joined the call for aggressive action. They want to regulate something none of them can define. They want rules for technology they don't use. They want credit for solving a problem that may not exist by creating problems that definitely will.
The executive order does nothing. It signals. It postures. It makes middle-aged donors feel like someone is protecting them from the scary robot future their grandkids keep talking about at Thanksgiving.
California already can't keep the lights on during summer. The state's high-speed rail project is fifteen years behind schedule and a hundred billion dollars over budget. But sure, artificial intelligence is the emergency that requires immediate executive action.
Newsom thinks he's being proactive. He thinks he's leading. He's actually just a guy who watched three TED Talks and decided he understands neural networks well enough to regulate them.
The best part? By the time any of these regulations mean anything, the technology will have moved six generations forward and the entire framework will be obsolete. But he'll still get to say he did something before it was too late.
Too late for what, he'll never say. Because he doesn't f*cking know.
Photo by Rogelio Gonzalez on Unsplash
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