Every few weeks we hear reports of mind-blowing new capabilities from the AI community. With excitement and dread, we try to extrapolate what this will mean for humanity and society: speculating about which jobs will disappear, which will appear, and when computers will overtake humans. These topics have become part of our daily conversation.
Less noticed, but fundamentally important, is the simultaneous number of government announcements of new regulatory measures. States have more than 1,500 bills under consideration. Congress has hundreds of them, the executive branch has dozens of executive actions, and market participants have varied views on how the AI sector should be regulated.
I once thought that this AI revolution might be governed by the invisible hand of the market. These nearly 2,000 proposals tell us that this is not possible.
While many of the proposed policy changes are thoughtful, necessary, and a step forward, they are not, as a whole, sufficient. The common denominator is that they all focus on one element of the problem at hand. No proposal attempts to establish a sustainable, comprehensive and forward-looking regulatory framework.
National regulatory bodies have traditionally been created after a crisis. The SEC was created after the crash of 1929 and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) after the Three Mile Island partial meltdown.
Let’s not wait for a crisis to arise during this AI revolution.
We need policymakers to act proactively and establish a national regulator with the broad mandate to properly oversee the AI revolution based on the opportunities and challenges of today and tomorrow.
The creation of a national regulatory body is not a panacea. It could be argued that a so-called AIR commission, given that AI impacts all areas of society, will have the most dynamic mandate. Regulators tend to over-regulate, and continued oversight by Congress, the executive, the judiciary, and the public is essential. The AI revolution is a global race and balancing an innovation-driven market with appropriate regulation is a herculean task that we must master.
However, I would propose one aspect of the SEC’s operating model as a partial path forward.
Before joining Nasdaq, I ran an entrepreneurial software company. Speed to market was paramount and we updated our product as quickly as possible. At Nasdaq, I was shocked to learn that in order to implement improvements to the core exchange technology, SEC rules required that we submit the details of those changes to the SEC, which would in turn publish them for comment and further review. Having all your competitors know exactly what was included in your next release was totally uncomfortable.
Over time, the result of this method of operation is that American financial markets are the best in the world. SpaceX’s IPO was only possible in the US market.
I am confident that public comments received on major changes to an LLM model will eclipse by orders of magnitude comments received on changes to an exchange order type.
In advocating for a national AI regulator, I don’t know if I’m saying it’s the greater good or the lesser evil, but I know it’s just the beginning. As the AI revolution advances, the regulatory apparatus must also change. The SEC of 2026 is a slight echo of what was created in 1934.
I am certain that any regulatory effort, in the short term, will hinder progress, but in the long term, good traffic rules will create the conditions for the common good.
-By Bob GreifeldCEO and co-founder of Cornerstone Financial Technology, and CNBC contributor
