>AI includes, but is not limited to, machine-based systems that can, for a set of defined objectives, make predictions, recommendations

Also regression, most of what makes computers fast (LRU cache, branch prediction), optimising compilers.

>decisions

Arguably this deems any program containing a conditional branch instruction as AI.

Thank goodness the law is interpreted by judges and not engineers.

No, I'm not joking.

Ideally the law is written in language that can be understood by the people who are expected to follow it not just judges. Preferably without fuzzy boundaries where they are not necessary, like to avoid injustice.

The complaint I see here is that wording, at least in the article, does neither of these.

Since what it does is set procedure for the FTC during FTC investigations, the people that are expected to follow it are...the FTC.

(Its also important to people subject to FTC investigations to determine whether they are obligated to respond to particular things that purport to be a particular form of administrative subpoena, but, I mean, at the point that your business is subject to an FTC investigation in which they are issuing things that look like administrative subpoenas, you probably ought to be engaging counsel to guide you in that process for more reasons than just "is this something we need to obey", and the substantive law being investigated is going to be a much more complicated thing that the one page order adopting compulsory process for a particular domain of investigations.)

> but, I mean, at the point that your business is subject to an FTC investigation in which they are issuing things that look like administrative subpoenas, you probably ought to be engaging counsel to guide you in that process for more reasons than just "is this something we need to obey", and the substantive law being investigated is going to be a much more complicated thing that the one page order adopting compulsory process for a particular domain of investigations.)

More clear wording would hopefully allow business to avoid getting some CIDs on this topic and/or streamlining the process after getting a CID. If you know hat you need to document to make it clear you are the right side of the law, hopefully that would make the entire process go faster.

Any organization that needs to worry about this ruling has access to a legal department who can interpret it for them.

As stated elsewhere. This is so broad that it would include people selling handmade weathervanes. Which do not have access to legal council let alone a department.

The FTC, of course, being long and famously in the habit of going after people selling handmade weathervanes.

Law is not code. They don't work the same. The longer you confuse them, the more confused you'll be.

Under that logic, why have rules at all? Let's just give the FTC the power to do anything it wants with no oversight and trust that they won't abuse that power in any way. It would certainly make it easier for them to do the things we want them to do, and after all, the FTC has no history of abusing the powers it never previously had.

Law is not code, law is law, and our legal system is based on the idea that by default the government can't do things, we specifically allow things if and only if we want the government to actually be allowed to do those things, and we limit what we allow as narrowly as possible while still enabling the goal to be accomplished. There is a long history of overly broad laws being applied in obviously unintended ways, with countless examples of horrific consequences, which is why we set up our legal system this way. We know that relying on reasonable interpretation is a bad practice that should be avoided as much as possible. It is laughable to dismiss such concerns as being rooted in a lack of understanding of how the law works, indeed I would describe anyone who does not have such concerns as naïve at best.

> We know that relying on reasonable interpretation is a bad practice that should be avoided as much as possible.

I have some bad news for you about the last couple hundred years or so of how the US legal system works, especially in but not exclusive to the aspects of case law and judicial review.

For future reference, the convenient shorthand for your position here is: "Marbury v. Madison was wrongly decided."

Whew, good thing I don't have a legal department!

Well, also, the descriptive text in FTC press releases is't law, not even administrative law.

No, but it's a description of one party's opening position in the negotiation out of which law will eventuate. Still quite far from something the median engineer is well equipped to encompass, judging at least by a decade of experience on Hacker News.

I think when the law needs interpretation and is not clearly understood by the majority of unwashed peasants it should not exist.

I think there should be wasps the size of deer. Certainly either is about as likely.

Freeing the slaves was just as unlikely at some point

It really wasn't.

Yep, the former are more useful to buy and it's more socially acceptable.

I mean that's at best a wildcard when it comes to saving us from our own laws; it's not like our judicial system has literally ever consistently demonstrated good judgement. It's by far the most conservative and reactionary of our branches of government. That's not even touching the absolute disgrace that is our current generation of judicial staff.

If I was a lawyer (and suitably charismatic) I could stand up in court and convincingly demonstrate that all the trivial examples in this thread are indeed Ai as written by the founding fathers of this legislation.

You're forgetting about the `const` function ;) A martingale is a process whose next expected value is equal to the current value. Suddenly, it's all AI!

If you have a general prediction system, and somehow configure it to predict const, then it's still a general prediction system.

If it can only do const, then it's not.

So I see no problem with the consequences of your observation.

Well yeah but that's undeniably AI when used to predict such a process, even if it is wildly primitive and incapable of being adapted to other things. It's all statistical* models.

> Arguably this deems any program containing a conditional branch instruction as AI.

Correctly so. What is called “AI” is effectively a mess of conditional branch instructions, except with a twist that you cannot know what they are or directly control them

With the twist that we cannot know what they are or directly control them being the important bit.

A bunch of conditional statements are fine so long as they can be reasonably analyzed. It's the point where you stop being able to analyze them that you have a risk you didn't before.

Correct. And when you apply them at scale.

It doesn’t even have to be software.

This camera tracking a goldfish to pick stocks is AI by this definition:

https://youtu.be/USKD3vPD6ZA

Update: A coin toss meets this definition.

Both the camera and fishtank are artificial, this is clearly AI. The goldfish would have picked different stocks in a natural habitat and when observed by another goldfish.

So... any algorithm that leads to a prediction better than chance? That seems dangerously and unnecessarily broad.

> That seems dangerously and unnecessarily broad.

It's called government regulation.

Or idk a broomstick that's stood up just right so when it's windy outside it falls over alerting you to the wind and recommending you close your windows

Or this guy

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d3/We...

Plenty of safety critical PID controllers out there though...

My mechanical mecury thermostat is now AI!

> AI includes, but is not limited to

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Affirming_the_consequent

The FTC hasn't defined AI, they've specified some properties which they believe some types of AI possess.