June 11, 2024
Transparency—Like Charity—Begins at Home?
As the debate about regulating artificial intelligence applications heats up, much is being made of the need for transparency. For the most part, AI algorithms “do their thing” in an “black box” that renders the basis for their decisions opaque even to their developers. Transparency—and its bedfellows “explainability”, “interpretability” and “understandability”—feature prominently in the development of standards…
June 10, 2024
A History Lesson for Robert Lighthizer
The “break” in US trade policy came under Trump and Biden, not in the 1990s. Recently, a spate of news stories has attempted to predict future US trade policy under a potential second Donald Trump administration. Robert Lighthizer, the former US Trade Representative under Trump, remains close to the former president and has emerged as a reference guide on…
June 6, 2024
The Government is Gunning for Live Nation. It’s Making a Historic Mistake
In today’s complex business environment, being a CEO is akin to playing three-dimensional chess. Markets and supply chains are constantly disrupted by global conflicts, financial markets remain volatile, and AI is transforming industries at a breakneck pace, not to mention the shifting political winds and declining public trust in institutions. Despite these complexities, the Biden administration is…
June 5, 2024
Legislation, Litigation, or Licensing? Resolving Journalists’ Copyright Concerns About Training Generative AI Tools
In May, the Bipartisan Senate AI Working Group, comprising sens. Chuck Schumer (D-NY), Mike Rounds (R-SD), Martin Heinrich (D-NM), and Todd Young (R-IN), issued a report, Driving U.S. Innovation in Artificial Intelligence: A Roadmap for Artificial Intelligence Policy in the United States Senate. Regarding the relationship between journalism and generative artificial intelligence (Gen AI), the group said it recognizes the AI-related concerns of professional content creators and…
June 4, 2024
Is This the “Compute Era”?
The chip manufacturer Nvidia reported its first-quarter earnings last week—and it was another blockbuster. For the first three months of 2024, Nvidia booked $26 billion in revenue, up 18 percent from the last quarter of 2023 and up 262 percent year over year. Nvidia’s stock price has more than tripled in the past 12 months, sending its…
June 4, 2024
Creating a New American Surveillance State
The practice of think-tankery provides one very little feedback. It’s a bit like shouting into the wind. One can’t be sure of being heard, and the winds of malign policy change can be very strong. So I was excited to read Byron Tau’s book, Means of Control: How the Hidden Alliance of Tech and Government is…
June 3, 2024
Inside Tech’s $2 Trillion Technical Debt
Technical debt, the accumulation of shortcuts and compromises in software systems, is an issue across industries with consequences ranging from system failures and security breaches to hindered innovation. The Wall Street Journal reports it was the cause of 13,000 canceled Southwest Airlines flights during the 2022 holiday season and numerous high-profile cyberattacks on Google, Apple, and Microsoft….
May 31, 2024
Imposing Net-Neutrality Regulations Would Be a Step Backward
Net neutrality is a sometimes well-intentioned, but always misguided attempt to regulate the internet under the guise of fairness and equality. Except for a brief moment during the Obama administration, the U.S. has always embraced light-handed regulation for the internet. This approach has served us well. Today 95% of American adults use the internet and…
May 31, 2024
Scarlett Johansson’s Spat with OpenAI Reveals Deeper Conflicts over Technology
“I’m different from you,” the advanced artificial intelligence chatbot named Samantha tells Joaquin Phoenix’s protagonist in her low, sultry voice in director Spike Jonze’s 2013 hit film Her. “This doesn’t make me love you any less. It actually makes me love you more.” The question of just how different AI models are from humans occupies the core of Her and…
May 30, 2024
Justice Kavanaugh Unfiltered: What His Recent Remarks May Portend for Murthy v. Missouri
It’s relatively rare to peer directly into the constitutional thinking of sitting US Supreme Court justices. Although such glimpses surface most visibly in the opinions justices join or author, they also are revealed during the give-and-take of oral arguments, at commencement speeches, in books, and during public appearances. A slight “suggestive” window cracked opened into Justice Brett Kavanaugh’s mindset during…