[AI Survival Diary #29] AI Is Already Here. So Why Is the Law Moving So Slowly?
AI Survival Diary Series | #29
AI is already here. So why is the law moving so slowly?
A few days ago, my wife told me about a coffee shop in Gangnam.
One employee.
Orders taken by kiosk,
coffee made by a robot arm,
the one employee just clearing tables.
What surprised her wasn't that there were so few staff.
It was that the place was so busy there was nowhere to sit — and the coffee was actually good. A different league entirely from those robot coffee machines you'd see at highway rest stops a few years back.
A thought crossed my mind.
"If places like this keep popping up, is this how people get pushed out — a little at a time?"
AI experts talk about universal basic income.
Politicians talk about retraining.
Robot taxes and shorter working hours keep coming up too.
But strangely, none of it feels like it's actually moving.
AI keeps advancing by the day. Why are the safeguards moving so slowly?
Are we headed toward a repeat of the Industrial Revolution, where ordinary people were the last to be protected?
So this time, I wanted to find out why law always lags behind technology.
● ● ●
Picking up where post #28 left off
Post #28 looked at why the Industrial Revolution failed to protect its workers.
Back then, it was an era with no reason to protect ordinary people.
Now it's different.
Both governments and businesses have a structural reason to protect people.
And yet it's strange. AI keeps advancing by the day, but basic income, retraining, shorter hours, robot taxes — all of it is moving far slower than expected.
Why?
● ● ●
1. Most people still don't think it's their problem
At first, I assumed the government was just slow.
But thinking about it more, this wasn't just a government problem. Society as a whole hadn't yet taken this on as its own issue.
Take people in their twenties job hunting right now. They do feel that "AI has made it harder to get hired." But they don't feel like something was taken from them. To them, it's just that an already-difficult job market got a little harder.
So the generation absorbing the biggest impact is, ironically, the one least able to raise its voice.
What about people already employed? AI hasn't directly replaced their jobs yet. Only certain fields are affected so far.
From the state's point of view, overall employment figures aren't shaken. People still in their jobs don't feel a major shift yet either.
So both citizens and government are stuck at the level of "we should probably get ready for this."
Everyone still seems to be treating this as "something that will happen eventually."
2. The Industrial Revolution felt this way too, at first
This feeling isn't unfamiliar.
As we saw in post #27, mass unemployment didn't hit the Industrial Revolution right from the start. New factories opened. Production grew. The economy expanded.
Back then, the loom was still just a tool that helped people work. Not so different from how AI boosts a white-collar worker's productivity today.
Today's generative AI and agentic AI are the same. For now, they're used far more to make people's work faster than to replace people outright.
Entry-level hiring has dropped, but for people already established in their careers, AI is, if anything, a welcome tool.
Right now, we're treating AI the way people treated machinery in the early Industrial Revolution — as something that raises our productivity.
Not yet as something that replaces us.
● ● ●
3. So when will things actually change?
Ray Kurzweil predicted AGI would arrive around 2029. That's still three years off.
But businesses aren't waiting for that date.
1.1M
layoffs announced worldwide in 2025
55,000+
explicitly attributed to AI by the companies themselves
What's striking is that this wasn't because AI had already proven itself perfect. Companies moved first simply because the possibility looked close enough.
The Gangnam coffee shop is the same story in miniature. Robot arms aren't in every café yet. But one success story —
"Huh, that actually works?"
— is all it takes for the next round of investment to begin.
Entry-level hiring will keep shrinking. Existing headcount will start shrinking too, bit by bit.
And the moment this becomes visible to everyone will probably be when physical AI moves in earnest into factories, logistics, and services.
At that point, this won't just be a white-collar story anymore. People may start watching, in real time, a person being replaced by a robot right in front of them.
● ● ●
So, what does this tell us?
Post #28 looked at why the Industrial Revolution failed to protect its workers.
This time, I traced why the law for the AI era is still so slow.
At first, I thought the government was simply behind.
But following it all the way through, a different picture emerged.
Businesses prepare for the future first, because their survival depends on it.
Governments move only once citizens actually feel the present.
Business survival calculus → Hiring cuts → Rising unemployment → Public frustration → Government response
So the order is always roughly the same. Business moves first. People feel it later. Government only moves after that.
That's how it went in the Industrial Revolution. It doesn't look all that different now.
So here's what I really want to know.
Do we really have to wait until mass unemployment becomes an undeniable reality before anything moves?
We already know how the Industrial Revolution ended.
Do we have to walk through the same sequence anyway?
Or can we actually get ready faster this time?
I don't have that answer yet.
But one thing is clear.
We already know how the Industrial Revolution ended.
If we repeat that same sequence with that history in hand,
it won't be a mistake made out of ignorance anymore.
So in the next post, I'll look at exactly how far the U.S., Europe, and Korea have gotten in preparing for the AI era — comparing their legislation and policies one by one.
