Facebook’s top executive in charge of developing artificial intelligence believes regulators should not target advancements in AI—they should instead focus on how the technology is used.

“I am generally in favor of regulating a particular application rather than a technology,” Yann LeCun said in an interview last month. LeCun also defended the continued use of facial recognition, saying regulators need to discriminate between applications that serve “good purposes” and those that don’t.

Neil Hodge is a freelance business journalist and photographer based in Nottingham, United Kingdom. He writes on insurance and risk management, corporate governance, internal audit, compliance, and legal...