In my latest R Street Institute blog post, “Mapping the AI Policy Landscape Circa 2023: Seven Major Fault Lines,” I discuss the big issues confronting artificial intelligence and machine learning in the coming year and beyond. I note that the AI regulatory proposals are multiplying fast and coming in two general varieties: broad-based and targeted. Broad-based algorithmic regulation would address the use of these technologies in a holistic fashion across many sectors and concerns. By contrast, targeted algorithmic regulation looks to address specific AI applications or concerns. In the short-term, it is more likely that targeted or “sectoral” regulatory proposals have a chance of being implemented.
I go on to identify seven major issues of concern that will drive these policy proposals. They include:
1) Privacy and Data Collection
2) Bias and Discrimination
3) Free Speech and Disinformation
4) Kids’ Safety
5) Physical Safety and Cybersecurity
6) Industrial Policy and Workforce Issues
7) National Security and Law Enforcement Issues
Continue reading →
[Originally published on Medium on 2/5/2022]
In an earlier essay, I explored “Why the Future of AI Will Not Be Invented in Europe” and argued that, “there is no doubt that European competitiveness is suffering today and that excessive regulation plays a fairly significant role in causing it.” This essay summarizes some of the major academic literature that leads to that conclusion.
Since the mid-1990s, the European Union has been layering on highly restrictive policies governing online data collection and use. The most significant of the E.U.’s recent mandates is the 2018 General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). This regulation established even more stringent rules related to the protection of personal data, the movement thereof, and limits what organizations can do with data. Data minimization is the major priority of this system, but there are many different types of restrictions and reporting requirements involved in the regulatory scheme. This policy framework also has ramifications for the future of next-generation technologies, especially artificial intelligence and machine learning systems, which rely on high-quality data sets to improve their efficacy.
Whether or not the E.U.’s complicated regulatory regime has actually resulted in truly meaningful privacy protections for European citizens relative to people in other countries remains open to debate. It is very difficult to measure and compare highly subjective values like privacy across countries and cultures. This makes benefit-cost analysis for privacy regulation extremely challenging — especially on the benefits side of the equation.
What is no longer up for debate, however, is the cost side of the equation and the question of what sort of consequences the GDPR has had on business formation, competition, investment, and so on. On these matters, standardized metrics exist and the economic evidence is abundantly clear: the GDPR has been a disaster for Europe. Continue reading →
- President Biden began his 2023 State of the Union remarks by saying America is defined by possibilities. Correct! Unfortunately, his tech-bashing will undermine those possibilities by discouraging technological innovation & online freedom in the United States.
- America became THE global leader on digital tech because we rejected heavy-handed controls on innovators & speech. We shouldn’t return to the broken model of the past by layering on red tape, economic controls & speech restrictions.
- What has the tech economy done for us lately? Here is a look at the value added to the U.S. economy by the digital sector from 2005-2021. That’s $2.4 TRILLION (with a T) added in 2021. These are astonishing numbers.
- FACT: According to the BEA, in 2021, “the U.S. digital economy accounted for $3.70 trillion of gross output, $2.41 trillion of value added (translating to 10.3 % of U.S. GDP), $1.24 trillion of compensation + 8.0 million jobs.”
In 2021…
- $3.70 trillion of gross output
- $2.41 trillion of value added (=10.3% percent GDP)
- $1.24 trillion of compensation
- 8.0 million jobs
FACT: globally, 49 of the top 100 digital tech firms with most employees are US companies. Here they are. Smart public policy made this list possible.
- FACT: 18 of the world’s Top 25 tech companies by Market Cap are US-based firms.
- It’d be a huge mistake to adopt Europe’s approach to tech regulation. As I noted recently in the Wall Street Journal, “The only thing Europe exports now on the digital-technology front is regulation.” Yet, Biden would have us import the EU model to our shores.
- My R Street colleague Josh Withrow has also noted how, “the EU’s approach appears to be, in sum, ‘If you can’t innovate, regulate.’” America should not be following the disastrous regulatory path of the European Union on digital technology policy.
- On antitrust regulation, here is a study by my R Street colleague Wayne Brough on the dangerous approach that the Biden administration wants, which would swing a wrecking ball through the tech economy. We have to avoid this.
- It is particularly important that the US not follow the EU’s lead on artificial intelligence regulation at a time when we are in heated competition w China on the AI front as I noted here.
- American tech innovators flourished thanks to a positive innovation culture rooted in permissionless innovation & policies like Section 230, which allowed American firms to become global powerhouses. And we’ve moved from a world of information scarcity to one of information abundance. Let’s keep it that way.
The Technology Liberation Front is the tech policy blog dedicated to keeping politicians' hands off the 'net and everything else related to technology.