The birth of comparative AI governance

Abstract

In 2023, AI governance has made a significant shift away from a focus on "AI ethics" towards the first concrete steps in setting up the legal and regulatory framework for AI governance. Legislative work on the EU AI Act was completed, the US administration issued Executive Order 14110 on AI and other jurisdictions moved ahead with their respective initiatives. At the international level, the Hiroshima Process and the Bletchley Declaration crystallized the commonalities and divergences between emerging domestic approaches to AI governance. This contribution surveys the emerging set of major legal and regulatory issues now on the table and provides an early account of what could become "comparative AI governance".