AI Isn’t Above the Law, Says Lina Khan

The argument: On 13 September 2026, Lina KhanDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → argued that law-enforcement authorities already have the power to charge companies and their chief executives for creating and releasing dangerous, unvetted or defective products. Her central point is that the arrival of artificial intelligence does not create a legal vacuum: companies cannot treat AI as an exemption from rules that already apply to harmful products and corporate conduct.

Existing law versus new regimes: Khan cautioned that policy discussions about new legal frameworks should not distract from enforcing the laws already on the books. That shifts the immediate question from whether AI requires an entirely new category of liability to whether regulators and prosecutors are using existing authority effectively, and whether companies are documenting the testing, safeguards and decisions needed to establish responsibility when a product causes harm. The distinction matters for both AI developers and deployers: a novel technology may create novel risks without automatically erasing established duties.

Why her view carries weight: Khan served as Chair of the Federal Trade CommissionDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → from June 2021 to January 2025, where she focused on antitrust and consumer-protection enforcement, non-compete clauses, sensitive-data surveillance and conduct affecting access to healthcare. She is now an Associate Professor of Law at Columbia University and leads the Center for Law and the Economy with Lev Menand. The centre’s work examines how law and legal institutions structure the economy, placing her AI intervention within a broader focus on market governance, institutional capacity and accountability.

Practical implication: For AI companies, the message is straightforward: product novelty is not a defence in itself. Pre-release evaluation, careful deployment, incident response and an auditable record of consequential decisions can all become important when authorities assess whether a product was dangerous, unvetted or defective. New legislation may still be debated, but Khan’s post argues that enforcement need not wait for it.

Read more: Lina Khan on X · Federal Trade Commission biography · Columbia Center for Law and the Economy · Photo: New America, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons