Especially if WBE comes late (so there is a big hardware overhang), you wouldn't need a lot of time to spend loads of subjective years designing FAI. A small lead time could be enough. Of course, you'd have to be first and have significant influence on the project.

Edited for spelling.

I don't think this would be impossibly difficult. If an aggressive line of research is pursued then the first groups to create an upload will be using hardware that would make immediate application of the technology difficult. Commercialization likely wouldn't follow for years. That would potentially give government plenty of time to realize the potential of the technology and put a clamp on it.

At that point the most important thing is that the government (or whatever regulatory body will have oversight of the upload aggregate) is well informed enough to realize what they are dealing with and have sense enough to deal with it properly. To that end, one of the most important things we can be doing now is trying to insure that that regulatory body will be well informed enough when the day comes.