Kwame Wang

The funding data review, which found no failures from the AI Act, feels like a limited snapshot designed to serve a specific narrative.
Who truly benefits from presenting such a narrow analysis as a "major driver" for assessing a complex regulation's viability?
It ignores the countless smaller ventures that might be struggling silently or never even got off the ground due to perceived compliance burdens, like trying to get a permit for a small business here, you just give up.
This claim conveniently overlooks any conflict of interest in showcasing only the visible successes, while the invisible failures remain uncounted.
We need to question the motive behind such a selective interpretation, not just accept it at face value.

The absence of direct funding failures in AI startups since 2024, as presented in this analysis, doesn't automatically mean the AI Act is a breeze; it often means you're looking at who can afford to play the game.
Who really benefits from this narrative that things are perfectly fine? It's the larger firms or those with deep pockets who can navigate the complex regulatory maze, while smaller, more innovative ventures might simply give up before they even appear on the radar for a funding round.
Just like in Italy, where the big companies can always afford their commercialista to handle the endless paperwork, many promising ideas from smaller teams get buried under compliance costs long before they ever reach an investment committee.
This isn't 'context'; it’s a selective spotlight that conveniently ignores the unseen struggles and lost potential, painting a rosy picture for those who drafted the rules.

The "no direct funding failures" finding from one review is a narrow feedback loop that can't possibly capture the full impact of a complex system like the AI Act.
Regulatory viability is a question of second-order effects and systemic shifts, not just the absence of immediate collapses, much like how one good grade doesn't mean a student has mastered the entire curriculum.
It overlooks the bottlenecks created for smaller startups who might pivot or never even launch due to perceived compliance costs, and how that shapes the entire innovation regime.
Assuming this single data point heavily influenced a debate about overall viability shows a misunderstanding of how complex systems actually operate and interact.