CONCEPT
Building Institutions for the World That Actually Exists
The constructive program this volume derives from White's historical research: the institutions that will govern AI must be built deliberately, during the lag period, by people who understand both the technology's implications and the long-term consequences of institutional improvisation.
Every major technology in the historical record has eventually produced institutions that govern its use. The question is never whether the institutions arrive; it is when, by whom, and in whose interest. White's catalog demonstrates that institutions improvised late, by the people positioned to improvise, tend to serve their builders' interests and compound the costs borne by the displaced. Institutions built earlier, more deliberately, with broader participation tend to distribute benefits more widely and mitigate costs more effectively. The practical implication for the AI transition is that the institutional work — labor protections, educational reforms, governance frameworks, cultural practices — must be built now, during the lag, by people who understand what is at stake. The alternative is to let the lag run its course and count the casualties afterward, which is what every civilization before the modern era did, because the analytical tools to do otherwise did not exist.
