AI regulation aimed at identity?

SCWorld.Com reported that “The debate over artificial intelligence is usually framed in terms of capability. How powerful will the next model become? Which country will lead? What jobs will be automated? What risks will emerge from increasingly capable systems?”  The July 1, 2026 article entitled “The debate over artificial intelligence is usually framed in terms of capability. How powerful will the next model become? Which country will lead? What jobs will be automated? What risks will emerge from increasingly capable systems?” (https://tinyurl.com/2hysdye6 ) Included these comments from Aaron Painter about why “The internet was never built for this”:

The modern internet was designed around access, not authenticity. The architects of the web envisioned a world in which information could move freely across borders and software could be distributed globally at negligible cost. As the internet matured, companies invested heavily in understanding the behavior of the people using their services because behavior, not identity, was the foundation of their business models. Over time, they became remarkably sophisticated at inferring interests, predicting purchases, measuring engagement, and profiling users with extraordinary precision. Yet for all of that sophistication, most internet services remained surprisingly indifferent to one fundamental question: who is actually on the other side of the screen?

For most purposes, that indifference was acceptable. Streaming services need to know where you’re located for content licensing purposes, e-commerce companies need your shipping address, and social networks want to reduce spam and fraud. But very few online services need to establish identity with the level of certainty required in banking, aviation, national security, or border control.

Frontier AI changes the equation because the value being controlled is fundamentally different. Historically, the United States has imposed restrictions on technologies that confer strategic advantage. Nuclear technologies, advanced cryptography, military systems, aerospace engineering, and semiconductor manufacturing have all been subject to varying forms of export control. The logic is straightforward: some capabilities are considered so important to national competitiveness or national defense that unrestricted distribution becomes a policy concern.

Whether one agrees with that approach or not, the direction of travel is becoming increasingly clear: governments around the world are beginning to view the most advanced AI models not merely as software products, but as strategic assets.

What do you think about AI regulation?