Brief Note · AI Governance
Institutional readiness is the real AI policy question
Most AI policy debates skip the harder prerequisite: whether the institution doing the governing is ready to govern anything at all.
The most interesting AI policy question is not which rule to adopt. It is whether the institution being asked to adopt it has the internal capacity to read, commission, and contest the systems it is meant to regulate.
Capacity before compliance
When a ministry sets out to regulate a capability it does not yet understand, the result is not usually failure. It is something slower and more corrosive: a regulatory apparatus that looks present on paper and is absent in practice.
About the author
Qiqing He is an AI workforce transformation strategist and founder of the independent Global AI Governance & Workforce Transformation Policy Observatory. His research draws on evidence from China and Asia.