AI Risk and the Very Large Hammer
The trick in AI policy is not deciding whether artificial intelligence is risky. Of course it is. So are electricity, aviation, pharmaceuticals, and teenagers with driver’s licenses. The harder question is where the risk attaches, and whether a given proposed fix targets that point or simply hands policymakers a very large hammer labeled “AI.”
A recent post by Dean Ball, a senior fellow at the Foundation for American Innovation, tees up that familiar tension. On one hand, there is a strong case against broad, ex ante regulation of AI systems. On the other, highly capable systems may pose risks that are hard to dismiss—particularly in areas like cyber operations or biosecurity. The question is how to reconcile those instincts without defaulting to heavy-handed control.
That framing is useful. It also leaves something important underspecified.
The debate still tends to treat “AI” as a single object of governance, rather than a layered system in which different interventions operate in very different ways. Knowing Dean Ball personally, I doubt he intended that simplification. But his post could leave that impression. It is worth unpacking why the distinction matters.
Once those layers collapse, any risk can justify sweeping oversight. Once they are separated, many proposed interventions look far less precise than their advocates suggest.