New Delhi, Dec. 9 -- I have long argued that modern technologies can only be effective if governed by principle-based legislation. Prescriptive rules tend to be sclerotic, calcifying faster than the technology systems they seek to regulate. What we need instead are broad, durable principles that describe the outcomes we need, rather than the processes by which they are achieved. This ensures that the law's objectives remain valid even after the technology it governs has evolved in a direction that no one could have anticipated.

The need for well-designed principles-based regulation is particularly acute in the era of artificial intelligence (AI). If there is one thing that is predictable about these computational systems, it is that they...