Fei-Fei Li advises leaders to focus on science in AI debate

Fei-Fei Li has a message for the world’s most powerful decision-makers: put down the sci-fi novels and pick up a research paper. The Stanford professor and co-director of the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered AI (HAI) used the lead-up to the AI Action Summit in Paris to make a pointed case for evidence-based AI governance. In a landscape where policy conversations frequently veer into existential dread about sentient machines, Li argued that effective regulation needs to be anchored in what AI actually does today, not what a screenwriter imagines it might do in 2045. Three principles for AI policy that doesn’t embarrass itself Li laid out a clear framework built on three pillars. First, AI regulation should be grounded in scientific evidence rather than fictional projections about machine consciousness. Second, rules need to be pragmatic enough to reduce unintended consequences while still leaving room for innovation. Third, policy should support the entire AI ecosystem, from well-funded corporate labs down to open-source projects and resource-constrained academic researchers. Her concern about science fiction framing isn’t abstract. When lawmakers spend hearings asking whether...