Op-Ed

As businesses and governments race to make sense of the impacts of new, powerful AI systems, governments around the world are jostling to take the lead on regulation. Business leaders should be focused on who is likely to win this race, more so than the questions of how or even when AI will be regulated.

The US Treasury just gave California more than half a billion dollars to fund broadband buildout. This money may help reduce the digital divide. It also might not.

Some policymakers are calling for money to subsidize middle-mile networks. Because it is so difficult to precisely define “middle mile,” and therefore identify and measure its outcomes beyond simply being built, it’s hard for politicians and recipients of the money to resist their spending spree of federal funds regardless of whether it’s needed. More middle-mile funding can generate new construction and a ribbon-cutting ceremony, but nobody will ever know if it generated more broadband. 

[Sarah Oh Lam is a senior fellow at the Technology Policy Institute]

In a period of only nine days—April 25 to May 3, 2023—the the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced initiatives to look at unfair and deceptive acts involving AI and proposed banning Meta Platforms from targeting young users. These come on top of two years of antitrust aggressiveness and consumer protection assertiveness. But both actions beg the question, “Are the tools strong enough for the task?” Both the AI and Meta activities are indications of the limitations that FTC Chair Lina Khan and the agency face as a result of being tied to industrial-era statutes and procedures.

Legislation aimed at regulating telecommunications operators is in the works and companies should hasten to prepare for what’s to come. A bill introduced to the Senate in March 2023 proposes to do away with “junk fees,” which are financial charges that President Joe Biden denounced in his State of the Union address.

 A rift at the heart of the telecommunications sector risks reversing decades of progress and plunging digital allies into a new phase of conflict. Europe’s telecom companies want US corporations such as Alphabet/Google, Netflix, Amazon, and Meta to pay for the increasing video traffic they generate. These US giants originate data accounting for around 50 percent of network loads.

What can make people enthusiastic about broadband? What if a community, using the creation orientation, views broadband as the means to build or invent things that didn’t exist before? Essential Families is a 501c3 nonprofit that provides virtual parental education and mental healthcare services. The organization conducted a telehealth pilot in one of the poorest communities in Kansas City (MO) with stellar results.

Too often policymakers, political leaders, contractors, and consultants want to tell communities just how broadband should work for their unserved and underserved.

As economies around the world rebound from the pandemic, there are significant variations in the pace and strength of the recovery.

The internet is facing multiple crises. From algorithmically fueled misinformation on Facebook to communities abandoned by large internet service providers, the tension between digital monopolies’ profit interests and the public interest is glaringly evident. Consensus is growing that the internet we have is not the internet that we want or need. In recent years, a diverse array of thinkers has begun to coalesce around bold ideas for radically democratizing the internet—from the pipes that connect us to the internet to the platforms that distribute news and information.