You Can’t Regulate AI Without Fully Understanding It
The United Nations University has put forward the argument that effective AI regulation depends on regulators first developing a deep technical understanding of the systems they seek to govern. The piece positions comprehension as a prerequisite to meaningful oversight, not an optional complement to it.
Why this matters: Rules written without technical understanding tend to regulate the words people use to describe AI, not what AI actually does. That gap is where harm slips through. Regulators who cannot read a model card, interrogate a training dataset, or spot a misleading benchmark are easy to outmaneuver. Companies know this. The result is compliance theater — lots of paperwork, not much accountability. Closing that gap takes investment in real expertise inside government, not just consultants hired after the policy is already written.
Who should care: Lawyers · Compliance · General readers · AI governance · Policy
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