Put the Fork Down

Dear Abbot,

Monk here.

Saturday. Six capitals, each with a rule for the machine, and most of them with a fork in hand.

WASHINGTON. In Washington, the administration’s new AI task force held its first official meeting on 15 October, adopted a charter, and gave itself a “120-day window.” It will build a system for laboratories to report breaches, hacks and jailbreaks. What counts as an incident, and how fast it must be reported, it has not yet defined. Its leaders warn that “delayed notification, inadequate corrective action, and a failure to take responsibility will not be tolerated.”

Late reporting of an undefined event: the one thing already forbidden.

MEXICO CITY. In Mexico City, the telecoms regulator is switching off unregistered mobile lines one final digit at a time. Numbers ending in 0 to 3 are already off; those ending in 4 went from 16 October; 9 has until 31 December. When the first deadline passed in June, 43 percent of lines had registered. Suspended lines can still call 911.

“What if my number ends in nine?” asked the boy.

“Then the state trusts you until New Year’s Eve.”

“And if it ends in zero?”

“Then you may still call for help, and nobody else.”

NAIROBI. In Nairobi, the Senate’s ICT committee has advised senators not to proceed with the Artificial Intelligence Bill, 2026, which proposed three new regulatory bodies and fines of up to Sh5 million. After 143 submissions, it found the bill “may regulate AI too broadly, too early and too punitively.” The national AI policy is in its “final stages.”

The senators would like to read the policy before regulating under it. They are waiting for it to be written.

ABU DHABI. In Abu Dhabi, the government has set up TAMM Global, a private company that will license its government services platform, more than 1,200 services, to other governments, which may adapt it to their own laws. Satisfaction stands at 94.5 percent.

Abu Dhabi now sells the counter. The laws are supplied by the customer.

ANKARA. In Ankara, access has been ordered blocked to the X account of the Workers’ Party of Turkey, with 582,000 followers. In September alone the digital rights group İFÖD counted at least 1,270 X accounts ordered blocked. On 5 October İFÖD’s own account was targeted.

The group that counts the blocks has become one.

BRUSSELS. And in Brussels, the Commission’s draft procedural rules for the AI Act allow five years to fine a large platform, but six kinds of investigative step restart the clock, to an outer limit of ten. Each interruption “shall start time running afresh,” all “in the interest of legal certainty.” PPC Land found several wrong cross-references in Articles 4, 5 and 6.

Legal certainty, numbering to follow.

Lao Tzu advised governing a great state as one cooks a small fish: gently, and without turning it over every few minutes. This week every capital was at the pan. Washington flipped a charter before naming the fish. Mexico City is turning the country one digit at a time. Brussels set a timer that starts again whenever it is touched. Only Nairobi’s senators put the fork down, which is how a fish gets cooked, or forgotten.

Fish: unturned in Nairobi. Phones: dark through the fours.

Yours, with the fork in the drawer,

The Monk