How Distrust is Driving Artificial Intelligence Regulation in the European Union

The emergence of new technologies often brings with it a complex interplay between their acceptance by society, gauging their risks, and whether it is warranted for the state to be involved-typically via new or amended regulation. However, what drives regulators and decision-makers to even consider the question of whether there is a need for involvement has remained under-studied. In this article, we propose viewing regulation as a process with five distinct phases: laissez-faire, awareness, politicisation, regulation and cool-off. A critical phase is the transition between awareness and politicisation, as the latter commonly leads to regulatory action. We look at the emergence of regulation for artificial intelligence, aviation, genetically modified organisms, disinformation and retail self-checkouts to show that there is a correlation between distrust and politicisation. We further show the probable causal link specifically for regulating artificial intelligence in the EU, and derive possible policy implications from this conclusion.