Last updated Nov 29, 2025
Sacks @ 01:00:35Inconclusive
governmentai
As a result of the Biden AI executive order and subsequent overlapping regulations from many U.S. federal agencies, technology companies will eventually lobby for and obtain the creation of a single, dedicated federal agency (a “federal software commission” analogous to the FCC/FDA) that regulates AI and large-scale software in the United States.
What's going to happen is that with all of these different bodies issuing new regulations, it's going to get more and more burdensome on technology companies until the point where they cry out for some sort of rationalization of this regime. They're going to say, listen, we can't keep up with FCC and Department of Commerce and this Entity Standards Board, just give us one agency to deal with. And so the industry itself is eventually going to cry, uncle and say like, please just give us one. And you already hear people like Sam Altman and so forth calling for the equivalent of Atomic Energy Commission for AI. This is how we're going to end up with a federal Software commission, just like we have an FCC to run big communications, and we have an FDA to run Big Pharma. We're going to end up with a federal software commission to run software. Big software.View on YouTube
Explanation

As of November 30, 2025, the United States has not created a single, dedicated federal agency functioning as an FCC/FDA‑style regulator for AI or “big software,” as Sacks described.

  1. Current federal structure is still multi‑agency and patchwork.
    Recent overviews of U.S. AI governance explicitly note that there is no single federal AI regulator; instead, AI is governed via executive orders, NIST guidance, and enforcement of existing laws by multiple agencies such as the FTC, EEOC, CFPB, DOJ, and sectoral regulators (e.g., FDA for medical AI).(quickcreator.io) These sources characterize the U.S. approach as fragmented and agency‑led, not centralized in a new stand‑alone commission.

  2. The AI Safety Institute / CAISI is not a full regulatory commission.
    The Biden administration’s 2023 AI executive order led to the creation of a U.S. AI Safety Institute inside NIST, later renamed by the Trump administration to the Center for AI Standards and Innovation (CAISI). It focuses on standards, testing, and international representation, and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick has emphasized a voluntary, pro‑innovation posture rather than serving as a rule‑issuing regulator for all AI.(theverge.com) This does not match Sacks’s vision of a powerful, independent “federal software commission” analogous to the FCC/FDA.

  3. Congressional proposals for a single tech/AI agency have not passed.
    Senators Bennet and Welch’s Digital Platform Commission Act would create a Federal Digital Platform Commission with broad authority over digital platforms and some AI issues. However, the Senate bill (S.1671, 118th Congress) remains at the introduced stage with no further action; no law has been enacted and no such commission exists in reality.(congress.gov)

  4. Timing language makes the forecast open‑ended.
    Sacks frames the outcome as something that will happen as regulatory burdens accumulate—“this is how we’re going to end up with a federal software commission”—without specifying a time horizon. Since only about two years have passed since the November 2023 executive order, and U.S. policymakers are still debating whether to create such a body, current evidence only shows that the outcome has not yet occurred, not that it will not occur.

Because the key condition of the prediction—actual creation of a single, FCC/FDA‑like federal agency to regulate AI and large‑scale software—has not happened yet, but the forecast is effectively open‑ended in time, the correct assessment as of late 2025 is **“inconclusive (too early)” rather than definitively right or wrong.