May 2017

Senate Should Either Fix Or Get Off The Pot On Copyright Office Bill

by on May 26, 2017 · 0 comments

Guest post from Sasha Moss, R Street Institute (Originally published on TechDirt on 5/24/07)

The U.S. Senate is about to consider mostly pointless legislation that would make the nation’s register of copyrights—the individual who heads the U.S. Copyright Office, officially a part of the Library of Congress—a presidential appointment that would be subject to Senate confirmation.

While the measure has earned praise from some in the content industry, including the Motion Picture Association of America, unless senators can find better ways to modernize our copyright system, they really should just go back to the drawing board.

The Register of Copyrights Selection and Accountability Act of 2017 already cleared the U.S. House in April by a 378-48 margin. Under the bill and its identical Senate companion, the power to select the register would be taken away from Librarian of Congress Dr. Carla Hayden. Instead, the president would select an appointment from among three names put forward by a panel that includes the librarian, the speaker of the House and the majority and minority leaders of both the House and Senate. And the register would now be subject to a 10-year term with the option of multiple reappointments, like the Librarian of Congress.

The legislation is ostensibly the product of the House Judiciary Committee’s multiyear series of roundtables and comments on modernizing the U.S. Copyright Office. In addition to changes to the process of selecting the register, the committee had recommended creating a stakeholder advisory board, a chief economist, a chief technology officer, making information technology upgrades at the office, creating a searchable digital database of ownership information to lower transaction costs in licensing and royalty payments, and creating a small claims court for relatively minor copyright disputes. Continue reading →

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Does “Permissionless Innovation” Even Mean Anything?

by on May 18, 2017 · 1 comment

[Remarks prepared for Fifth Annual Conference on Governance of Emerging Technologies: Law, Policy & Ethics at Arizona State University, Phoenix, AZ, May 18, 2017.]

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What are we to make of this peculiar new term “permissionless innovation,” which has gained increasing currency in modern technology policy discussions? And how much relevance has this notion had—or should it have—on those conversations about the governance of emerging technologies? That’s what I’d like to discuss here today.

Uncertain Origins, Unclear Definitions

I should begin by noting that while I have written a book with the term in the title, I take no credit for coining the phrase “permissionless innovation,” nor have I been able to determine who the first person was to use the term. The phrase is sometimes attributed to Grace M. Hopper, a computer scientist who was a rear admiral in the United States Navy. She once famously noted that, “It’s easier to ask forgiveness than it is to get permission.”

“Hopper’s Law,” as it has come to be known in engineering circles, is probably the most concise articulation of the general notion of “permissionless innovation” that I’ve ever heard, but Hopper does not appear to have ever used the actual phrase anywhere. Moreover, Hopper was not necessarily applying this notion to the realm of technological governance, but was seemingly speaking more generically about the benefit of trying new things without asking for the blessing of any number of unnamed authorities or overseers—which could include businesses, bosses, teachers, or perhaps even government officials. Continue reading →

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Big names weigh in on FCC’s net-neutrality rules

by on May 16, 2017 · 0 comments

Guest post from Joe Kane, R Street Institute

We seldom see a cadre of deceased Founding Fathers petition the Federal Communications Commission, but this past week was an exception. All the big hitters—from George Washington to Benjamin Franklin—filed comments in favor of a free internet. Abraham Lincoln also weighed in from beyond the grave, reprising his threat “to attack with the North” if the commission doesn’t free the internet.

These dead Sons of Liberty likely are pleased that the FCC’s proposed rules take steps to protect innovation and free the internet from excessive regulation. But it shouldn’t surprise us that politicians have strong opinions. What about some figures with a broader perspective?

Jesus weighed in with forceful, if sometimes incomprehensible, views that take both sides on the commission’s Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, which seeks comment on scaling back the FCC’s 2015 decision to subject internet service to the heavy hand of Title II of the Communications Act of 1934. Satan, on the other hand, was characteristically harsher, entreating the commissioners to “rot in Florida.”

Our magical friends across the pond also chimed with some thoughts. Harry Potter, no doubt frustrated with the slow Wi-Fi at Hogwarts, seems strongly in favor of keeping Title II. His compatriot Hermione Granger, however, is more supportive of the current FCC’s efforts to move away from laws designed to regulate a now defunct telephone monopoly, perhaps because she realizes the 2015 rules won’t do much to improve internet service. Dumbledore used his comments to give a favorable evaluation of both Title II and the casting of Jude Law to portray his younger self in an upcoming film.

A few superheroes also deigned to join the discourse. Wonder Woman, Batman and Superman joined a coalition letter which made up with brevity what it lacked in substance. The same can’t be said for the FCC’s notice itself, which contains dozens of pages of analysis and seeks comments on many substantive suggestions designed to reduce regulatory burdens on infrastructure investment and the next generation of real time, internet-based services. Another, more diverse, coalition letter was joined by Morgan Freeman, Pepe the Frog, a “Mr. Dank Memes” and the Marvel villain (and Norse trickster god) Loki. It contained a transcript of Jerry Seinfeld’s Bee Movie.

Speaking of villains, Josef Stalin made known his preference that no rules be changed. But Adolf Hitler attacked Stalin’s position like it was 1941.

Then there are those with advanced degrees. Doctor Bigfoot and Doctor Who filed separate comments in support of net neutrality.

In a debate too often characterized by shrill and misleading rhetoric, it’s heartening to see the FCC’s comment process is engaging such lofty figures to substantively inform the policymaking process. I mean, it sure would be a shame if taxpayer money supporting the mandatory review of the 1,500,000+ comments in this proceeding was wasted on fake responses.

This post was originally posted at the R Street blog.

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Book Review: Garry Kasparov’s “Deep Thinking”

by on May 11, 2017 · 0 comments

[originally posted on Medium]

Today is the anniversary of the day the machines took over.

Exactly twenty years ago today, on May 11, 1997, the great chess grandmaster Garry Kasparov became the first chess world champion to lose a match to a supercomputer. His battle with IBM’s “Deep Blue” was a highly-publicized media spectacle, and when he lost Game 6 of his match against the machine, it shocked the world.

At the time, Kasparov was bitter about the loss and even expressed suspicions about how Deep Blue’s team of human programmers and chess consultants might have tipped the match in favor of machine over man. Although he still wonders about how things went down behind the scenes during the match, Kasparov is no longer as sore as he once was about losing to Deep Blue. Instead, Kasparov has built on his experience that fateful week in 1997 and learned how he and others can benefit from it.

The result of this evolution in his thinking is Deep Thinking: Where Machine Intelligence Ends and Human Creativity Begins, a book which serves as a paean to human resiliency and our collective ability as a species to adapt in the face of technological disruption, no matter how turbulent.

Kasparov’s book serves as the perfect antidote to the prevailing gloom-and-doom narrative in modern writing about artificial intelligence (AI) and smart machines. His message is one of hope and rational optimism about future in which we won’t be racing against the machines but rather running alongside them and benefiting in the process.

Overcoming the Technopanic Mentality

There is certainly no shortage of books and articles being written today about AI, robotics, and intelligent machines. The tone of most of these tracts is extraordinarily pessimistic. Each page is usually dripping with dystopian dread and decrying a future in which humanity is essentially doomed.

As I noted in a recent essay about “The Growing AI Technopanic,” after reading through most of these books and articles, one is left to believe that in the future: “Either nefarious-minded robots enslave us or kill us, or AI systems treacherously trick us, or at a minimum turn our brains to mush.” These pessimistic perspectives are clearly on display within the realm of fiction, where every sci-fi book, movie, or TV show depicts humanity as certain losers in the proverbial “race” against machines. But such lugubrious lamentations are equally prevalent within the pages of many non-fiction books, academic papers, editorials, and journalistic articles.

Given the predominantly panicky narrative surrounding the age of smart machines, Kasparov’s Deep Thinking serves as a welcome breath of fresh air. The aim of his book is finding ways of “doing a smarter job of humans and machines working together” to improve well-being. Continue reading →

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That AI You Hate, You Really Love

by on May 3, 2017 · 0 comments

By Jordan Reimschisel & Adam Thierer

[Originally published on Medium on May 2, 2017.]

Americans have schizophrenic opinions about artificial intelligence (AI) technologies. Ask the average American what they think of AI and they will often respond with a combination of fear, loathing, and dread. Yet, the very same AI applications they claim to be so anxious about are already benefiting their lives in profound ways.

Last week, we posted complementary essays about the growing “technopanic” over artificial intelligence and the potential for that panic to undermine many important life-enriching medical innovations or healthcare-related applications. We were inspired to write those essays after reading the results of a recent poll conducted by Morning Consult, which suggested that the public was very uncomfortable with AI technologies. “A large majority of both Republicans and Democrats believe there should be national and international regulations on artificial intelligence,” the poll found, Of the 2,200 American adults surveyed, the poll revealed that “73 percent of Democrats said there should be U.S. regulations on artificial intelligence, as did 74 percent of Republicans and 65 percent of independents.”

We noted that there were reasons to question the significance of those in light of the binary way in which the questions were asked. Nonetheless, there are clearly some serious concerns among the public about AI and robotics. You see that when you read deeper into the poll results for specific questions and find respondents saying that they are “somewhat” to “very uncomfortable” about a wide range of specific AI applications.

Yet, in each case, Americans are already deriving significant benefits from each of the AI applications they claim to be so uncomfortable with.

Continue reading →

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