Is it time for lean legislation?

Originally published on Tumblr.

A few weeks ago I stopped by a University of Illinois signal processing lab. The lab wasn’t in Illinois, along with the rest of the school; it was in Singapore. When I asked why, the answer surprised me. The laws in Illinois made this lab’s research too difficult.

One of the scientists I spoke with showed me what he was up to. He was working on a new technique to eliminate background noise from recordings made in noisy environments. He makes his recordings in bars and restaurants. In Illinois, he told me, you can’t record anyone without their consent, so it’s impractical to gather the input data. It’s too much work.

I’m sure that the people who wrote the law didn’t realize it would lead to some very smart scientists leaving not only the State, but the country. They probably didn’t realize that those people would then be training Chinese PhD students instead of Americans, and encourage development of IP that will stay in Singapore.

This made me wonder how many other beneficial activities are hampered or prevented by well-meaning but misguided or out-of-date laws. The more I thought about it, the more examples I came up with.

Why have Segway-like devices made so little impact on our urban landscape? Not because they look a bit ridiculous, but because municipalities passed laws banning them from sidewalks almost the instant they were released. Was there no alternative?

I’m worried about Glass, and other heads-up technologies. Already people are rushing to ban them while driving. But what if they make driving safer?

I’m worried that privacy laws are preventing us from coming up with sensible frameworks to manage our data. And I’m worried that regulators are slowing down the development of myriad useful technologies.

I don’t for a second doubt that drug regulators are causing more harm than they are preventing. What useful drugs aren’t making it to market because of regulatory barriers? How many dying people are being prevented from trying experimental drugs because a bureaucrat hasn’t deemed them safe enough?

Sometimes laws and regulations force changes that have little cost or impact. Other times – as with the Illinois recording law – they force changes in behavior that have significant economic impact. And sometimes they cause harm by preventing an opposing good to emerge.

As a society we’re actually relatively good at correcting or eliminating harmful laws. In the “old days” the rate at which we did this seemed to be more in line with the rate of progress. Legislative and scientific activity were more or less in sync. The Internet seems to have upset that balance. It allows ideas to spread much more quickly, so scientific progress is accelerated. Unfortunately, politicians can’t keep up.

I suspect that this will cause many moral scientists to break the law. It will cause others to move to friendlier legal jurisdictions, or even outside of any jurisdiction. Should we be worried? I really don’t know, but it’s definitely worth thinking about.