AI regulation has been transformed from potential constraint into corporate accelerant. Concern over algorithmic harm has been captured, inverted, and repackaged as "governance frameworks" that exist solely to legitimise extraction at machine speed.
Consider the logic. AI governance creates trust. Trust enables deployment. Deployment creates competitive advantage. Therefore governance is good for business. This isn’t regulation. It’s a protection racket dressed in compliance theatre.
The con works through definitional capture. “Governance” no longer means constraint. It means process. “Accountability” no longer means liability. It means documentation. “Transparency” no longer means disclosure. It means publishing methodology whilst hiding training data, decision logic, and error rates.
Every term has been hollowed out. Refilled with its opposite. The vocabulary of protection now serves extraction.
“Build governance into systems from day one” is brilliant corporate engineering. Make oversight technical. Embedded. Proprietary. External regulation becomes impossible. Who audits the audit logs? Who interprets the explainability reports?
This isn’t accountability. It’s circular validation with a compliance aesthetic. Governance becomes so technical that only the governed can govern themselves. Academic credentials. Impressive acronyms. Conferences where regulators and deployers speak the same engineered language.
Regulatory capture so complete that constraint becomes conceptually impossible.
“Clear frameworks allow organisations to move faster” reveals the con. Regulation that accelerates corporate action isn’t regulation. It’s infrastructure. The framework eliminates friction. Legal uncertainty. Public resistance. Democratic deliberation.
Anything that might slow deployment gets reframed as “unclear governance” requiring “modernisation.” Governance never means “no.” Never refuses deployment. Never limits application. Never prioritises worker protection over “scalability.”
Governance is the apparatus that makes “yes” feel responsible.
“Globally deployable solutions” is regulatory arbitrage in governance drag. Build in permissive jurisdictions. Embed “compliance by design.” Export everywhere. The framework travels with the product. Pre-empts local constraint.
Regulatory imperialism dressed as global leadership.
Who benefits from governance that accelerates deployment? Not workers subjected to algorithmic management. Not citizens under automated surveillance. Not communities experiencing algorithmic discrimination.
The beneficiaries are always the same. Deployers. Investors. Consultants. The institutional apparatus that extracts professional value from governance theatre.
“Trust, accountability, transparency” exist as rhetorical cover for extraction at scale. The frameworks don’t constrain power. They legitimise it.
“Innovation without risk” means liability shields so complete that algorithmic harm becomes externality. The system decides. No human is responsible. The framework was followed. Harm is regrettable but not actionable.
Automation deployed at scale. Governed by processes designed by deployers. Overseen by captured institutions. Documented compliance whilst extracting maximum value.
Not innovation. Impunity infrastructure.
AI governance has become corporate libertarianism with academic credentials. The language of protection serves extraction. The aesthetics of accountability shield power. The promise of oversight delivers acceleration. The machinery of ethics produces compliance.
Every framework must be evaluated not by stated intent but by material function. Does this constrain deployment or enable it? Does this protect the vulnerable or the extractors?
Apply that test. Governance theatre collapses. The institutional apparatus that makes algorithmic extraction feel inevitable and responsible.
The apparatus works. Extraction continues.