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February 11, 2025
Trump v. CBS: When Politics, Journalism, Business, and FCC Authority Collide
Shortly after Donald Trump sued CBS in October over what he called “false, misleading, deceptive, and, therefore, unconscionable and detrimental news distortion” in editing a 60 Minutes interview with Kamala Harris, I contended that the lawsuit was likely meritless. While explaining that the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is responsible for enforcing a rule against news distortion by over-the-air broadcasters, I questioned the lawsuit’s…
February 10, 2025
DeepSeek’s Direct Challenge to Antitrust Orthodoxy
To understand what went wrong with antitrust during the Biden administration, look no further than former Federal Trade Commission (FTC) chair Lina Khan’s take on DeepSeek’s launch of R1, an artificial-intelligence (AI) platform. Rather than see the moment for what it is — a competitor arising by bypassing Biden’s supposedly insurmountable barriers to competition — she sees this…
February 10, 2025
The Specter of a Trade War
I haven’t written about tariffs at all, leaving it to Scott Lincicome to cover the ins and outs of tariff policy for Dispatch readers. But with the escalating trade war and a lot of open questions, I thought I would take a crack at trying to steelman President Donald Trump’s tariffs. While his rhetoric often seems impulsive, Trump’s push for tariffs…
February 7, 2025
Lessons from China’s DeepSeek: A Wake-Up Call for AI Innovation
In just a week, DeepSeek’s latest reasoning model erased a trillion dollars in market value, sparked new security concerns, and upended conventional wisdom about AI development. This forced policymakers and tech leaders to confront the implications of an affordable, high-performance model created by a geopolitical competitor. Chinese startup DeepSeek unveiled DeepSeek-R1, an advanced LLM that matches…
February 6, 2025
When Anti-Press Ascendancy Meets FCC Public Interest Regulation
Let’s start with an understatement: President Donald Trump isn’t happy with the way most American journalists are doing their jobs. During a December press conference, he proclaimed “we have to straighten out the press. Our press is very corrupt, almost as corrupt as our elections.” About six weeks earlier, Trump sued CBS, trying to straighten it out. The complaint…
February 5, 2025
Age Verification Laws vs. Parental Controls: Why the Legislatures, Courts, and Tech Aren’t on the Same Page
Technology is an integral part of our daily lives. Whether we connect with friends, seek instant information, or find entertainment, the online world is intricately woven into our life experiences. However, policymakers are encountering an increasing number of parents demanding regulations as their answer to protect America’s children. Some lawmakers in Congress and state legislatures…
February 3, 2025
My AI Advisers: Lessons from a Year of Expert Digital Assistants
Earlier this month, Ezra Klein reflected on how, despite recognizing AI’s enormous potential, he found no practical place for it in his daily routine. He echoed what I’ve heard from many people: Even after trying various GenAI tools, they didn’t see a strong reason to keep returning to them. It’s understandable because unlocking the real value in…
January 29, 2025
Deepseek’s AI Breakthroughs Don’t Change the Fundamentals—but They Are a Warning
China’s AI ambitions have long been hamstrung by a critical weakness: access to high-end computing hardware. US export controls have effectively cut Beijing off from the most advanced AI chips, putting a hard ceiling on its ability to compete at the highest level. But that hasn’t stopped China from trying to work around these limitations….
January 28, 2025
Federal R&D Funding Is Even More Valuable Than Washington Thinks
It’s a no-brainer that American public policy should aim to significantly increase both government and private-sector R&D investment to boost innovation-driven productivity and economic growth. During the 1960s Space Race, total US R&D spending reached just under three percent of GDP, with government leading at two percent and business at one percent, basically. Today’s R&D is over…
January 28, 2025
A Warning Against Warning Labels on Social Media Platforms
If you can’t constitutionally restrict social media platforms or the speech they convey, force them to transmit some of your own speech they’ll surely dislike. That’s seemingly the strategy of some lawmakers frustrated that the First Amendment’s guarantees of free expression and editorial autonomy have repeatedly stymied their paternalistic efforts to restrict minors’ platform access to lawful, presumptively protected…