March 26, 2025
DOJ’s Baseless Lawsuit Against HPE and Juniper Hurts Consumers
In the waning days of the Biden administration, a flurry of regulatory activity sought to cement policies that would be difficult for President Trump to unwind. New trade and labor agreements, expanded spending commitments, and a slew of regulations were pushed through, ensuring that Trump’s administration would be forced to navigate legal and bureaucratic obstacles to implement its agenda. Did Biden’s antitrust enforcers…
March 25, 2025
The Public Interest as a Political Tool
Donald Trump and Brendan Carr, the president’s choice to chair the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), seem intent on reinvigorating the Commission’s statutory authority to ensure that over-the-over broadcasters serve “the public interest.” That’s especially so when it comes to deploying the FCC’s news distortion rule to potentially punish stations—for example, CBS affiliates that aired 60…
March 21, 2025
Will FCC v. Consumers’ Research Revive the Nondelegation Doctrine?
The idea behind the nondelegation doctrine is sound: Congress should not delegate legislative power to executive branch agencies. But its implementation leaves much to be desired. Nearly every nondelegation case acknowledges there’s a theoretical boundary but then finds that Congress hasn’t crossed it here. Only twice has the Supreme Court found a law violated the…
March 21, 2025
New Poll on Workers’ Attitudes to AI Reinforces Old Divides
Will artificial intelligence help, replace, or kill us? These long-unanswered questions came back into focus earlier this week, as the Pew Research Center published the results of an eye-opening poll that further underscores an unhappy trend: our debate about AI is fundamentally broken. Pew found that more than half of all American workers reported being…
March 18, 2025
The Sad Myth of Independent Agencies
President Trump’s recent executive order (EO) asserting more formal control over so-called independent agencies has sparked controversy. Critics decry it as a “fundamental reshaping of the federal government” and even “illegal,” fearing that it will allow the president to direct regulatory decisions. But while the EO may look dramatic, in practice it changes little. Independent…
March 18, 2025
Children’s Online Safety Should Rely on Content Providers, Not Device Manufacturers
Creating and managing a positive digital environment for children has become a priority for parents, lawmakers, and technology companies. However, as proposals progress to develop solutions and implement protections, we must ensure that our approaches address parents’ concerns without creating additional issues from the extensive collection of minors’ data. Several legislative proposals currently seek to…
March 7, 2025
Design Mandate Proposals Threaten American AI Leadership
Scholars often cite the 1984 Betamax case as a pivotal moment in the development of modern American tech policy. The entertainment industry sought to prohibit Sony from selling its videocassette recorder, because it could be—and largely was—used by consumers for copyright infringement. But the Court declined, finding that the device was “capable of substantial noninfringing…
March 3, 2025
WEIRD? Institutions and Consumers’ Perceptions of Artificial Intelligence in 31 Countries
A survey of perceptions of Artificial Intelligence in 31 countries in 2023 yields significantly less positive perceptions of the new technology in developed western economies than in emerging and non-western economies. This could reflect citizens in non-Western countries perceiving machines (computers) and algorithms differently from those in Western countries, or that a more positive outlook…
February 27, 2025
Innovating Future Power Systems: From Vision to Action
The electricity sector is at an inflection point. The historical model of centralized, monopoly-provided electric service is under pressure from technological change, shifting market forces, evolving policy objectives, and changing consumer expectations. This transformation is accelerating. One fundamental question looms: how can power systems evolve to balance desired outcomes like reliability, resilience, affordability, and decarbonization…
February 26, 2025
This Silent Plane Just Made History
Two weeks ago, Boom Supersonic’s XB-1 demonstrator plane made history when it broke the sound barrier over the continental United States, reaching 750 miles per hour (Mach 1.12) near Barstow, California. You might be wondering why this is news. Since Chuck Yeager’s first sonic boom in 1947, thousands of military aircraft have broken the sound barrier. Even…