CONCEPT
Sunset Provisions
The regulatory design mechanism that requires affirmative renewal rather than passive continuation — built-in expiration forcing periodic reassessment against evidence rather than bureaucratic inertia.
Sunset provisions are regulatory instruments that build expiration dates into interventions, after which the regulation lapses unless the authorizing body, having reviewed evidence of the intervention's effects, actively renews it. The default is expiration rather than renewal, because the default of renewal produces institutional inertia — regulations that persist by bureaucratic momentum long after conditions justifying them have changed. The default of expiration forces the deliberative body to make an affirmative case for continuation, grounded in evidence about the intervention's actual effects, rather than allowing continuation to proceed by default. In AI governance, where technology evolves faster than any regulatory framework can anticipate and evidence accumulates too rapidly for static rules to remain adequate, sunset provisions are structural necessities rather than optional features.
In The You On AI Field Guide
The interval for AI regulatory sunsets should be short — two to three years — reflecting the pace of technological change. An intervention designed for 2026 AI capabilities may be inadequate or excessive for 2028 capabilities. The sunset provision ensures