Transcripts For CSPAN Govt 20240704

District council, the tech policy summit with live coverage. That event is already an progress and just got avoid tn social media where we did nothing for 25 years. The good news is Speaker Mccarthy to together a task force to do this. The good news is that speaker johnson and checking jeffreys ours putting together the Informal Working Group soon. Theyre trying to get some major ai bells done this year. Among them are the create the ai acts. Even some people like ibm do not have enough resources to compete with the huge databases of openai, of google, microsoft. We need databases that are available to businesses, researchers. This creates a large database, probably not as large as if you scrub up 6 trillion words, maybe 40 of them are not true. There will be all kinds of stuff about nazis and qanon theories. The idea and a Community Dataset is you let scientists of a curated data set is you let scientists build them for us. Another basic part of ai safety is the notion of not allowing Artificial Intelligence to make the decision about a nuclear launch. I will refer you to the wonderful ideas out there that we will try to get done and told incrementally. I am always suspicious that any of us one thing enough to think we can do regular ai and one belt. They are trying to do that in europe but there is pushback. They are also in europe, our perspective is they are trying to manage and regulate the math in the science, where as think that is impossible. We are trying to regulate the end uses if it violates privacy, puts a child at risk. If it is of the many Different Things that it could do that are negative, how do we guard against that . There is a Wonderful Firm in Northern Virginia whose only mission is to develop a taxonomy of the downside risks. In all these different use cases of ai, what are the things we have to worry about . Those are the things we have to address and try to overcome. Finally, i think that this is an incredibly exciting time in terms of Artificial Intelligence, all the different ways people are using it. It showed up last night in the super bowl, much of which i did not understand, but the notion that we can act in a bipartisan way and we can pick the best five or 10 bills out of these 191 will be a healthy thing. If we think stick with the optimistic side, what ai can do to help us to live to be 120 years old happily and healthily and the changes not just in health but supply chains, management, even democracy could be breakthroughs as long as we protect on the downside. I am excited that all of you are here which is now. Two years ago, we talked about ai and six people would show up. Youre not here to talk about the existential end of the world. They you for your attention and good luck. [applause] no rest for the wary. For our midmorning keynote, it is my distinct pleasure to introduce the Principal Deputy chief Technology Officer for the office of science and Technology Policy for the white house. I first met Deirdre Mulligan when i was a baby tech head. She was one of the Founding Members of the center for democracy and technology. That was like five years ago. She has been very busy since at the university of california berkeley, where she is with the school of information and also faculty director for the Berkeley Center for law and technology. Her Research Explores the legal and technical means of protecting free expression, privacy, and the freedom and fairness in new technologies. This country is lucky to have Deirdre Mulligan at the home of some of the most complex issues facing our Digital World today. It is my pleasure to introduce Deirdre Mulligan. [applause] thank you. It was not just five years ago. Last year, my predecessor, alexandra might go right, was here. He kicked off this speech reflecting on how nice it was to be with techie policy legal folks you lamented how thin our ranks were. I also feel at home here. I am the lawyer by training but i have spent most of my career with computer scientists, engineers, data scientist. Paula really believed that week all of whom believe we cannot really regulate our way through this world. If we want to build our future in a robust, meaning the way that helps us drive thrive, we have to view the design of technology itself is a tool. For that reason, i am grateful to be in this room, but i am also grateful to be in this room because almost 30 years ago, i had the privilege of helping to start the center for democracy and technology. As was mentioned earlier, shortly thereafter, we helped create the internet education foundation. As he tells it, shortly after that, i apparently recruited tim to come run it. I feel particularly grateful to be in this room and to been maintaining this stage for robust conversations around this issue for so many years. Truly today, we are at a capital moment. Everyone around the globe gets wet this community has gotten for many years. Everybody understands that if we want to build a future in which democracy thrives, human rights are protected, competition is meaningful and robust and leads to innovation, that we have to lean into Building Technology. It cannot be a better time to be sitting in this room and our ranks are growing. I am in a new role. After 23 years as a professor at uc berkeley, i now have the privilege of serving as principal Technology Officer at the white house. Maximizing the benefits of science and technology to advance health, prosperity, security, environmental polity, and justice for all americans. We advise the president and other senior white house shows on key issues related to science and Tech Knowledge he. Science and technology. We coordinate broadly. President biden and all of us in the administration are committed to using tech and data to support public interest, ensuring Technology Works for every member of the public and reflects and protects Democratic Values and human rights. I wanted to start by responding to cats question to alan, how is the administration doing . I have been in this space now for about 30 years. From my perspective, not just at as somebody who has in this community, i think the administration is hitting it out of the park. Alan talked passionately about the investment in broadband we have been making, making the internet for all an actual, realizable goal. We can look at a National Spectrum strategy, which sets a clear path for how we make the most for a scarce resource that is incredibly important for everything that you in this room do. We can look at the Administration Efforts on ai. I was in a Briefing Call with members of Civil Society, labor, Consumer Protection and philanthropies. Someone called me afterward and said, i think this is the most sweeping thing any government has ever that to advance civil rights, Civil Liberties, and equities in that the design and use of technology. They were blown away at the moment. When we think about where we are today, with the internet, we were doing a lot of catchup. I think what you can see today from the administration is trying to be on the ground thinking critically about how we design and use and regulate this technology at its inception. I want to start by talking about ai. Last october, President Biden signed a landmark executive order. Its ambitious agenda for the u. S. Directs federal agencies to establish new standards for ai safety and security, protect privacy and advance equality and civil rights. It stands out for consumers and workers, promotes innovation and competition and advances American Leadership around the land and much more. My guess is that the executive order has touched the work of everyone in this room because it was designed to improve the lives of every american. President biden directed everyone across the agencies to pull every lover. Every levere. We were to do all that we could and i think we did. I also noticed that there were specific issues that he pulled out at places where ai was undermining public rights and opportunities. He spoke about black americans being denied health care by algorithms. He talked about women whose job applications were being unjustly rejected by ai. I wanted to reflect back and say when you are looking for concrete action on key issues, we have done stuff. In the past year, we have taken meaningful steps to address these issues. The ai executive order is developing a Strategic Plan that includes policies, frameworks on the use of ai in the health and Human Services sector. It includes a specific focus on identifying and mitigating discrimination and bias in the healthcare system, including an algorithm used to deliver essential services across the country. Last year, the equal Employment Opportunity commission released Technical Assistance for employers and decisions related to recruitment, hiring, promotion, and dismissal. Most recently, the eeoc emphasized that employers are using technology to target job advertisements, recruit applicants and make decisions in employment. The agency said in order to combat employment discrimination, they will be focusing on this is a enforcement priority. In addition to tackling ai in this way, the administration is focused more broadly on equity in all of its work and in particular requiring federal agencies to look at the equity implications of algorithms that they use an agency work. This includes bringing civil rights officers do the conversation about how we design, deploy, and such tools. The Biden Harris Administration is also leading by example. We are establishing policies, practices to guide the responsible development and cultivate the best use of ai across the federal government. We are also investing in research and infrastructure and the talent necessary to do this work. In november, i am sure many of you saw that the office of management released a draft policy on the federal governments use of ai. It would establish structures and federal agencies, advance responsible innovation, increase transparency, protect federal workers, and manage risks of government uses of ai for the public. The draft policy emphasizes the importance of ensuring strong leadership at agencies and furthering public reporting and transparency mechanisms. It would place additional requirements on ai that impacts public rights and safety, including Impact Assessment, stakeholder complication and feedback, realworld performance testing. Independent evaluation and ongoing monitoring to make sure systems do not drift off in ways that perpetuate bias. This is eogroundbreaking policy. It really would ensure that government use of ai to distribute lifesaving benefits to the public are designed to protect the publics rights and advance equity, dignity, and fairness. We are putting our money where our mouth is. This guidance and the executive order further the ai bill of rights. When technology is changing at an extreme pace, it is important that we are clear about our principles and values and that we take the serious and swift action to put them into practice. Together, the ai executive order and this mmo serve as guiding lights as the administration continues taking action to use ai responsibly for the benefit of the public. None of this work would be possible without a robust ai workforce. It is why we launched the ai Talent Search. We are bringing in talent that can responsibly leverage ai, aid our enforcement agencies, do the management work that Many Companies are struggling to do. We need to do that also. We need to make sure that we have the Machine Learning experts, the data scientist, the ethicists, the Privacy Professionals to do this work and actually be a model for other countries and the private sector as you also work to do it. To bring in talent, we are not just putting out new ads. We are changing the way in which we bring people in. The office of Personnel Management is making it easier for agent to hire talent such as data scientist. We were are leveraging the president ial innovation fellows and the u. S. Digital Surface Service and also the new Career Opportunities that the Biden Administration created with the u. S. Digital core. Many federal agencies have already designated chief ai officers to advise leadership on ai and track ai activities. It is important to understand that technical leadership is not just necessary at the implementation stage. It is necessary when we are thinking about how we are going to use technology, design it, and bring it into operations so that ai Talent Search is designed to make sure we have a Strategic Vision and the force to do that hard implementation work. Second, i wanted to talk about facial Recognition Technology. The guidance i just mentioned is important when it comes to rights impacting ai, like visual recognition, used by the u. S. Government across a wide range of agencies. We have heard from many stakeholders who have expressed concerns about the use of facial Recognition Technology. We have seen action from federal enforcement agencies such as the federal trade commission. In may 2022, the president signed an executive order directing the federal government on how data can inform effective policing, as well as to identify privacy, civil rights, and Civil Liberties can turns and recommend best practices related to the use of technology, including facial record in and predict algorithms. My team and i are working with colleagues at the department of Homeland Security and the department of justice on this critically important work. To support this work, the National Academy of sciences conducted a study with a focus on the use of facial Recognition Technology Law Enforcement. The recentlyissued report highlights significant concerns that merit attention. By organizations not just that use the technology, but by those that develop it. To address these concerns, the report lays out a number of recommendations to the federal government. As the blueprint for an ai bill of rights highlighted, designers, developers, to players of Automated Systems should take proactive and continuous measures to protect individuals and communities from algorithmic discrimination and designed them in equitable ways. We continue to work with our colleagues at the department of justice and Homeland Security to identify best practices and to recommend guidelines not just for federal, but for state and local Law Enforcement agencies, as well as technology vendors. We will continue to Work Together not only on this effort around facial technique recognition and algorithms but also more broadly. The ai executive order past the department with reviewing and examining the ways in which ai is functioning across the criminal Justice System at large. Finally, i wanted to highlight the Important Role of privacy, Privacy Professionals, and privacy tools in responsible ai work and the way in which the administration is trying to be engaged. The community assembled today knows the importance of protecting privacy. He also understand the vast implications of the growing problems of personal data and the increase in technology and automated surveillance for human rights and democracy. Some of you are among the vanguard privacy professional community and what has now become an interdisciplinary field that understands the importance of shaping and designing technical tools. the work of the privacy community has never been more vital to our future. It is important that this industry and the tools that we use our updated to make sure they can fully address the risks and challenges posed by technologies such as ai. The executive order on Artificial Intelligence recognizes that strengthening federal protections for privacy is a top priority. Part of their action directs omb to solicit public input on how privacy Impact Assessments may be more effective at mitigating privacy harms, including those that are exacerbated by ai. I hope that we find many of your names in those public comments. This public input will inform omb as it considers what potential revisions to guidance may be necessary to ensure the privacy Impact Assessment facilitate robust identification and mitigation of potential harms and do so in a way that is transparent to the public. In conclusion, our nation has immense operations to achieve Robust Health and ample opportunity for each person in every opportunity. To overcome the Climate Crisis by reimagining the structure, restoring our relationship with nature, and environmental justice. To sustain Global Security and stability, to build a competitive economy and to foster a strong, resilient, and thriving democracy. Technology plays a vital role in achieving each of these, in particular ai. When designed and developed and used responsibly, technology and data can help to achieve our great aspirations. These advances can open the door to a future in which we meet the Climate Crisis, strengthen our economy, foster peace and stability and achieve Robust Health for all and open up opportunities for every individual. All of us in the Biden Harris Administration are committed to this work. That is required to build toward the future. We look forward to build toward your engagement and partnership. Thank you. [applause] as i mentioned in my opening, we have a new set of programming this year. Have lightning talks, a different concept from before, and we have overlap. Lightning talks is starting at 10 30 in the north. North hub. My board chair will introduce the next keynote. Thank you for your patience. The room is getting warm and feeling small because there is so many of you. I want to think and responses. To get a bigger room, we will need to remind the sponsor is how much we appreciate their generosity and possibly look into a bigger room for next year. There will be lightning talks and other events that will get you out of this room, but we have one more speaker this morning, ftc commissioner brendan carr. Please join me in welcoming the true champion of american connectivity. Brandon carr is senior republican of the ftc where he has had a long career in telecommunications. Through his early efforts, he learned earned a title and accelerated deployment by lightning fast nationwide networks. But his vision extends beyond connectivity. He recognizes the need for a skilled workforce, launched landmark programs for technical colleges and apprenticeships. With his series of 5gready presentations, he honors the vital work of the tower climbers as a show of respect for the work that they do, as well as the construction proves that form the backbone of our network. During covid, commissioner carr highlighted the importance and advocates for telehealth. He has done groundbreaking work on the connected Care Pilot Program which is helped oversee, bringing High Quality Health Care to underprivileged communities. Commissioner carr has also had a strong commitment into bridging the Digital Divide with his willingness to leave bureaucracy behind in washington and traveled the country, meeting workers on the ground and small operators that are part of our network. It fm apart by ensuring that all voices across america are heard, especially in rural areas connecting large distances and shaping the future of our communication landscape. Commissioner carr can bring a nuanced and balanced approach to issues as complex as the broadband expansion and the opening radio access networks. I am sure commissioner carr will offer valuable insights in the work that he is doing here at state of the net. [applause] thank you for that great introduction. So good to see so many of you here today it has been a couple of years since i was actually at state of the net. There is a reason for the five year gap. The last time i was here, it was during a government shutdown. For reasons that is the meeting today, during the shutdown, i decided to not trim my beard at all. I can hear and spoke. There is actually a picture. This is one of the most terrible and terrifying looking beards i have ever had. The thing that is interesting is that then became the main photo that was used for any story about her story about the ftc. I never was that into the european right to be forgotten law, intel is losing that photo of me everywhere. This year, i trimmed to the beard and hopefully there will not be anymore photos that i have to try to get scrubbed from the but it is wonderful to be here. Happy to start out with the state of the net. I think the state of the net from the isp layer is actually really good. Particularly if you go back to 2017 when i voted with my colleagues to reverse the decision to apply heavyhanded regulations to the net. There were a lot of predictions about doom and gloom that would be called the internet when we reach that decision. I remember the Viral Campaign that was launched right around then. All these predictions about the end of the internet. I remember one personal story was i got a facebook dm from a high school exgirlfriend who told me that by reversing title ii, i was about to make the second biggest mistake of my life. I broke up with her and neither one of those were bad decisions. The data points this out, at least on the internet site. The decision to reverse title ii over 3. 5 full onf the mobile wireless side,o we have seen speedsld. Increase over sixfolds. The percentage of americans with access has increased by 30 as a result of our title ii decision. Whether it is this latest generation of lower orbit satellites, or even the slightest move toward direct to cell technologies. If you look at it, traditionally mobile wireless players are now taking some of the largest new market share when it comes to inhome broadband. The opposite is also true. You see cable getting into wireless more so than ever before, taking traditional mobile wireless customers. Prices are down since that decision. Price per megabit has also followed substantially. You can compare that to other utilities like water, power, gas, where prices have continued to increase. Covid was the ultimate stress test of Global Telecom policies. You can compare what we had in the u. S. And the results we had during covid with the results that took place in europe which historically has had a different approach to regulation of the network. What we saw during covid was the regulators in europe called up some of the largest edge providers and asked them to degrade the quality of their signal because they were worried that content networks would break. Today, the data is equally as clear. U. S. Networks are faster than every country in europe. U. S. Networks are also more competitive than those in europe, with the u. S. Having nearly a 40 percentage point lead when households with networks are benefiting, infesting threefold as much per household than their european counterparts. When you look at the last couple of years at the ifp level of the internet ecosystem in this country, you see increasing investment, increasing speed, the Digital Divide narrowing. There is always more that we can and should be doing to promote even more robust competition. I look forward to taking some of those actions, but i also want to flag is couple of storm clouds on the horizon. One is spectrum. I think the Biden Administration has fallen into a bit of a malaise when it comes to spectrum policy. In getting spectrum out there, freeing it up for consumers to use, is not only good for getting people connected and for bridging the Digital Divide, but it is also good for u. S. Geopolitical leadership. When we are freeing up spectrum, the eyes of the world turn to the u. S. Capital flows here. We get to make sure that the services that are built out on these spectrum bands are ones that are going to work for our interest. Yet we are sort of moving in the wrong direction. In 2021, spectrum that we had made available previously. That same year and again in 2022, the Biden Administration delayed the rollout of 5g services. In 2023, the Biden Administration announced that they are not going to meet a deadline for identifying spectrum that is required for the ftc to auction just this year. On top of all of that, the Biden Administration put out a National Spectrum strategy. That strategy fails to commit to freeing up even single megahertz of spectrum. This marks a real 180 from the progress we had been making. If you look at 2017 through 2020, at the fcc ftc, we freed up 6000 megahertz of spectrum for licensed use and additional megahertz for unlicensed use cases. You can track that to the National Spectrum brand, which only says they are going to study 2800 megahertz. The Biden Administration only plans to study a fraction of that. This is where we need to turn things around. We are falling behind. U. S. Ranks 13th out of 15 leading markets when it comes to the availability of spectrum. We trail china in particular by about 710 megahertz of spectrum. Spectrum and the lack of it is one of the storm clouds on the horizon that we need to come together as a government and turn things around. Znthe second piece i want to tak about has to do with the current rollout of the funding initiative. The plan is run out of the Commerce Department. The idea is to make sure that every american has access to height net services. But we are already starting to see some issues. Congress made an important decision to proceed on a Technology Neutral basis. During seller is vital through clearing the goal of advancing every american. But there were policy cuts that have additionally raised the cost of connecting americans. You can see in this heavy thumb but the putt on the scale and some other decisions that have raised costs, including unions, preferences for government run networks. While we have clearly set the goal in allocating funding to get the job done of connecting all americans, the policy cuts are holding us back. You are starting to see evidence of that. A number of states have raised their hands and indicated that the amount of money that they are going to get from these is not going to be enough to connect all unserved locations in their states. This includes places like california, new mexico, and minnesota. This is concerning because with the right policy cuts in place, we were poised to get the job done. But there is still time. The Commerce Department is looking at some of these state applications for using the dollars. We need to move in a tech neutral way and that includes leaving room for technology to get the job done. Fixed wireless can connect americans on pennies on the dollar were fiber could the 18 acts lost. It can do so on a more compressed timeline. We still need to fund a tremendous amount of fiber bills but we need to leave home for fixed wireless or we will end up in a situation where we run out of money before we get the job done. That would be a failure. More broadly, i want to talk last piece of my remarks today. I want to share more about my regulatory philosophy in general. One thing i have seen in this job ended policy over the years is that people tend to move quickly into polar opposite corners. On the one hand, you have a group of people who will say any regulation at all is too much. On the other hand, you will have a set who have never found a regulation that they do not love. People reflexively go into those corners. I have tried to take a different approach. I am guided by a number of overarching policy considerations. One is looking for market power, looking for abuse of market power, looking for National Security issues, looking for visibility access issues. These are some of the points i look at to help guide me when we make the decision charged to us by congress of making decisions that are in the public interest. I have agreed with my colleagues in the fcc ftc that we should go beyond the voluntary wireless resiliency efforts put in place by the wheeler fs ftc and imposing new rules to promote wireless resilience. I have agreed with my calling for the majority that we should have rules to bring more competition to apartment buildings where cable providers in some circumstances have been locking up markets in an anticompetitive way. We also push back when i think that my colleagues have gone too far with regulations. You can see that on my dissent untitled ii regulation as well. I want to talk about that through the lens of two issues. One is the censorship we have en taking place by social Media Companies. This is an area where i agree with tim wu and others. Social Media Companies have articulated the view that their vision to discriminate or sensor against american when they participate in the modernday houseware is beyond the reach of the government due to the First Amendment. I recently joined it with my colleague commissioner simonton. We wrote an article that explained how the government is entirely consistent with the First Amendment and put guardrails in place to address that i think hasking place by serious anticompetitive implications. I started with these remarks talking about the competition that we are seeing in the areas directly regulated by the ftc, mobile wireless, telecommunications. But increasingly, all of that competition is coming down to a single show point. Apple, with their control over the operating system, software, coupled with their control over hardware, is creating guardrails that are having anticompetitive on the telephone space telecom space. It is an area where authorities are looking but also an area where the ftc has a role to play as well. One feature that apple has is blue message, green message. What happens there is when you are on an iphone, they are necessarily degrading the Text Messaging Service whether it is sharing a photo between an iphone user and an android user the photo quality is degraded. Looking at the green bubbles that show up give it a low contrast. That makes it difficult for people with low vision to pick up those messages. That is one feature of the broader problem that is happening with this approach. But it also highlights a role for the ftc. How many of you are familiar with the issue of beeper many . A couple. Deeper beeper mini was rolled out in december of last year. It came up with a solution to the green bubble, blue bubble. It enabled people on Android Devices to communicate with i message users in a blue bubble fashion no low contrast, no degrading of photos or video. In that way, among other things it promoted accessibility and useability by people with disabilities, including introducing more competition. I think the ftc should investigate apples conduct with recent baptist to with respect to beeper mini and to disable the functionality and beeper mini. The ftc should investigate apples conduct to see if it complies with the part 14 rules. Part 14 rules flow from a landmark disability rights statute. Those provisions talk about accessibility. There is a provision that says covered providers, which includes apple electronic messaging service, shall not install teachers that impede accessibility and usability. The ftc should launch an investigation into whether apples decision to degrade the beeper mini functionality that encouraged accessibility and usability was a step that violated the part 14 rules. The ftc analogized those rules to our core provision on interconnection. This is one small example of a broader the broader, negative consequences that come from apple maintaining and perpetuating a Walled Garden approach to technology. But there is potential to see it in the future as well. There are potentially negative consequences if apple perpetuates a world where it degrades the performance of competitive technologies. Some of the broader competitive effects are ones that the doj should look at and the ftc, including structural remedies. But there is a role for the ftc as well, whether it is looking broadly at these negative impacts that come from apple being a chokepoint. More specifically here, it was looking at our part 14 rules and whether apples conduct would be permitting ultimately violating the rules. Hopefully i will get you guys back on schedule but there is more we need to do to continue to encourage robust competition at the isp level. But the biggest threat to competition in the internet ecosystem right now is not taking place at the isp level. It is taking place at the edge. This is an important conference to bring different people together to look at these issues. They get for having me. Hopefully it will not be another five years before i am back. Thank you so much. [applause] thank you, commissioner carr. Do not worry. Your beard looks great. That was insightful. We are members of the alumni advisory board. Power challenges congress is official coding competition for students. We both impeded and won the challenge and joined the board as college students. Now we volunteer to host panels and initiatives. We also host a podcast called debug. We have a booth in the hallway. Please come talk to us. Our first Breakout Sessions are currently ongoing. In the north hub, we have lightning talks. In the south hub, i will join you for a conversation. The central hub, we have a i8 work. 00 at at ai at work. Thank you and do not forget to stop by our booth. The next breakout session in this room will be the safety panel but there is one going on in the central hub, the south hub and lightning talks in the north hub. Good morning. My name is naomis, reporter for the washington post, where i covered social media and focus on how it impacts our world. Lately that has meant covering this conversation amongst parents, activists, regulators about whether our youths are safe online and how Tech Companies can bolster safeguards. We had the u. S. Surgeon general warned that our teenagers are in a Mental Health crisis and that may be partly to blame because of social media. Some are suing meta, alleging the company of compromising Mental Health. Last month, we had the Senate Judiciary committee grill some of our biggest attack ceos about biggest tech ceos about how they are protecting kids online. I think there is disagreement about what exactly do problem is and the solution. How we protect use, preserving freedom of speech and privacy. We have an esteemed panel of guests. I will briefly introduce them and ask them to introduce themselves. We have john carr, haley hinkle. We have maureen flatley. And then we have daniel castro. Why dont we have you introduce yourselves briefly and talk about what your organizations do . John . John i am from england, as you might have gathered from my accent. I am glad to be here. My old friend rick is here. The 49ers recently became the owners of my Football Team in england, leeds united. I am beginning to worry about the effects. If anyone has any tips, please see me at the break and let me know. I am an advisor to the British Government and the u. N. Bit above all childrens organizations in the u. K. With a particular focus on Digital Technologies. Haley i am policy counsel at fairplay. We are a childrens media and marketing watchdog, focused on the ways in which screen time impacts healthy development. Maureen i am maureen flatley. I have spent the last almost 40 years engaged in government oversight in issues related to children. I always tell people that one of the most formative experiences of my life was being the daughter of an fbi agent. He developed testimony and that proved to me for most of my childhood that congress can solve big problems involving criminals. I think at the end of the day, my point of view on this issue is that this is not fundamentally a technology problem. This is fundamentally a crime problem. By ignoring that for far too many years, we have now created a problem that seems almost insurmountable but i hope today that we talked about some concrete solutions. Daniel . I am daniel castro. We are a nonprofit thing take focused on innovation and do work on tech policy and the metaverse and Children Safety online. I agree 100 with marine mureen that we tend to intertwine at these things when they are not there. Naomi i want to start with the hearing. I have been covering tech for a long time. That was probably one of the most emotional hearings i have ever covered, in part because we had families talk about the experience of young people who had lost their lives to suicide or found drugs online. Even though it was heightened, there was also a lot of blame shifting. We had lawmakers accused Tech Companies of having blood on their hands and also criticizing congress for not passing legislation. There was the session with josh hawley and Mark Zuckerberg said the company had parental tools, implying parents could play a role in protecting their kids. Amidst all the proposals and diagnoses in that hearing, in broad strokes, i am wondering if each of you can talk more about what you see as the top risks we are facing when it comes to youth safety online and who and what would be your first, biggest step that you think should happen right now. Daniel . Daniel i think watching that hearing you cannot chamoli with anything other than thinking it is political theater and in the worst possible way. We are seeing parents with real issues that impact children suicide, selfharm, eating disorders. There is so much that affects so many people. The solution to these problems the top solutions, complex issue, technology is not at the top of that list. We have bullying problems, problems with addiction in communities, drug overdoses. When you look at that, you realize that the purpose of that hearing is not to advance solutions that will actually help children. It is to advance legislation to regulate big tech. It is utilizing childrens suffering to advance legislation. We have seen this book in the past, which is why it being used again. We have seen it with the same issue where nobody wanted to oppose it. Who would be on the other site of the issue . It is the same with childrens Online Safety. There are issues that we can address, but if we think that addiction, selfharm, the reason these things are happening is because of technology platforms, that is not the reason. It is distracting from real solutions. Naomi maureen, anything to add about the most urgent priority right now . Maureen for sure. I have been to many congressional hearings. I have to say that i was really appalled at the framing of the hearing last week, which i did attend. The panel was blaming the Tech Industry for everything from Global Warming to napping the lindbergh baby. It was not app exercise to come up with solutions. There was no affirmative input at all. And you know, i was thinking about this last night and i thought, you know, if i had been Mark Zuckerberg, what would i have said to that panel . And i wrote it down. So, this is what i would have said. I would have said, congress has had 16 years to implement the protect act. It was a virtually perfect first step to building an infrastructure around Law Enforcement to mitigate all of the things that were seeing today. Yet in a recent g. A. O. Report, which if you havent read it, i recommended it highly, they issued a scathing indictment of d. O. J. For failing to implement this really important bill. Congress hasnt held any really meaningful oversight hearings. D. O. J. Hasnt issued any real reports. Child exploitation isnt on their list of priorities. As someone who grew up in a family with a father who worked for d. O. J. , i have the highest respect for that agency but in a universe of institutional players who are responsible for what we see before us today, the Justice Department is at the top of the list at least as far as im concerned, closely followed by congress, which has failed to do its job which is authorize, appropriate and oversee spending. The Tech Companies are mandated reporters just like teachers and pediatricians, pastors and daycare providers. All mandated reporters in other contexts are specifically shielded from civil liability because if they werent, we would never get any meaningful reporting but if you look at the list of cyber tips, virtually all of them come from Tech Companies. The number one reporter of cyber tips is meta and meanwhile, no one even bothered to ask the owner, the founder of meta what would be helpful to them to prevent the proliferation of this activity on their platforms. I dont know how many people live with a, but remember when washington, but remember when the columbia heights, cbs, was swarmed by shoplifters and theyre now closing that store. Nobody blames cbs for the shoplifters. Right . They call the police. And in this instance, im waiting for somebody to say, hey, Tech Companies are private companies. They cant arrest or prosecute anybody. They post those cyber tips dutifully every year, year in and year out. And yet they cant provide the Public Safety response to them that is needed. And quite frankly, when you look at what is really going on here, and what happens to those tips, theyre geolocated and theyre referred to countries all around the world. And, again, if were looking to mitigate the problem, we have to look at the underlying crime problems. No tech company is going to be able to combat the sextortion ring, a nigerianbased gang that is operating in probably 25 different countries. When i listen to those parents and their anguish and, believe me, i have worked with hundreds and hundreds of victims, when i discovered in 2006 that the civil penalty to download a song was 1 3 the civil penalty to download something else, i got john kerry to write the bill that fixed that in six months, so its not that im unsympathetic but im saying that blaming the Tech Companies for a global crime problem is not a path to success here. It just isnt. So naomi Law Enforcement could play a bigger role. If i were Mark Zuckerberg, i would have been asking a lot of questions. And one last observation as long as were on the subject. When i look at the plaintiffs that are suing meta, most of them have been sued themselves for poor Child Welfare outcomes. Several of them horrendous Child Welfare outcomes. So any suggestion that these individuals claims against meta are somehow on the moral high ground with respect to outcomes for children, dont make me laugh. So, at the end of the day, we really need to sort of refocus this conversation and look at whats really going on here and work with the Tech Companies. Because angers not a strategy, conflict is not a strategy. Whatever this is whatever is going on right now is not working and its certainly not helping kids. Naomi great. So i would say, my framing of the problem, fair play and with our fellow advocates, is this, which is that the incentives are such that these platforms are using kids data and designing user interfaces in a way thats meant to extend their time online. Expose them to advertising and give the platforms access to more data in order to better refine features that extend use and targeted advertising and so i think a lot of our work in this space has been very focused on a sort of twopronged approach. One is around data privacy and the other around safety by design. I dont think you know, i think this year we started to see some push and pull on the debate, sort of implying that advocates think that theres sort of a direct, like, solving these big tech issues will solve all the problems around teen Mental Health. I think that thats certainly not the case, certainly not a view thats shared by my organization or many of the folks that we advocate alongside. I think that what we are seeing is parents and youth advocates and organizations that are on the front lines of these issues, seeing that families really need tools and help. And we were at the hearing last month with quite a few parents who have unfortunately lost their kids to a range of horrifying onlinerelated harms and these are folks that had all kinds of parental settings, that have a lot of conversations with their kids. But i think that for me one of the big takeaways from the hearing was that theres an understanding across the aisle, on both sides of the aisle on capitol hill, that parents need help. That these companies have failed to selfregulate. Part of the reason Mark Zuckerberg was getting so many questions is because of the information that weve learned through the lawsuits that many, many, many states now have brought against instagram. Some of the things that have been unsealed, some whats revealed in metas own internal research about the way its product impacts kids and teams. Teens. So those are the things that are really top of mind for us as we carry this advocatory forward. I think that while, again, were not atrabting some attributing some sort of direct, well solve all of teens problems if we regulate these issues, the fact is that there are features and functions that exacerbate existing issues for kids as theyre developing. Were talking about, you know, young kids whose prefrontal cortexes are very much not developed, who are very vulnerable to what we know are scientific techniques to influence their behavior. So all that said, the hearing only means anything if we actually see action from congress. Weve had many, many, many hearings. Weve had in the last couple of years two very notable whistleblowers and our message has been and will continue to be that we need to see action now. Weve done enough talking. Ok. So theres nothing new under the sun. Theres always been misinformation, there have been children who have drug problems or theyve been bullied at school or theyve been bullies. Theres all kinds of things that have been going wrong in society for centuries. But whats distinctive about the period were living in is the way in which Digital Technologies have put various of these problems on steroids. And therefore in my mind theres no question that the Technology Companies, being the masters, mistress, boss, whatever, of that technology have a uniquely Important Role to play. The idea that the cops are going to sit on the networks monitoring stuff or watching stuff, its probably even scarier, its a very scary notion and its not a practical notion. So the companies have to step up and take an Important Role. I cant think of a single area of Law Enforcement in my country, im gathering its the same here, that is adequately staffed to deal with any area of crime. Theyre always underresourced that. Doesnt give the criminals a pass. It doesnt give other agencies permission to ignore what they can do to help minimize or reduce crime. Im going to i mean, age verification is something i was specifically asked to comment on because weve done various things in that field in the u. K. Ill start with a short story. In the u. K. , your kids go from Little School to big school around age 11. So when our kids went, like most parents, we opened up their first bank account, helped teach them how to manage money, we failed. Which is why im a poor man. But nevertheless, routinely as part of being given their Bank Accounts, age 11, they were given debit cards. So around 2003, 2004, we began to hear cases reported to childrens organizations, not my kids, i hasten to add, but children typically boys, 14, 15 years of age, being clinically diagnosed as gambling addicts. Just so were clear about that. What they were doing, they were getting their pocket money or their parttime earnings, putting it into their Bank Accounts and blowing it on a horse or a football match or whatever it might be. Now, you have to be at least 18 years old before you can gamble on anything. Online gambling has been possible since i know the situation is different here than in the u. K. I went to see all the big Gambling Companies, offices in the city of london, very expensive suits, wonderful board rooms, all of that stuff. I said, youve got kids being diagnosed as gambling addicts coming onto your site. And they said, yearoblem very seriously. If i had a pound for every time id heard an executive say we take this problem very seriously, id probably be in the bahamas now. But anyway, they all said the same thing. Privately publicly they said, we take it very seriously, were working on solutions, they did nothing. Privately what they said was, of course there is friction we could engage on our platforms to try to detect kids or slow them down but if we do it first, any of our all of our competitors will basically steal our business. So none of the Gambling Companies did anything until we changed the law and we changed the law in the 2005 gambling act. The relevant parts of which became operatific on the first of september, 2007. Under that law, the Gambling Commission will not give you a license to operate a gambling website in the United Kingdom unless you can show that youve got a robust age verification system in place. Since the first of september, 2007, im not aware of a single case, not one, where a child has gone onto a website, said they were 18 and then gone and blown their pocket money or gambled in any way at all. Im not saying it hasnt happened. They may have impersonated their parents, they may have borrowed a parents credit card, thats a different set of issues. But for the Gambling Companies and the Technology They had at their command, they had the means of doing that before the law changed, they didnt do it until the law compelled them to. And now were going to do the same with pornography sites. I might come on to that later if you want me to. Naomi actually, why dont we just dive into that topic now. Were in a moment where theres a lot of state bills that are pushing this idea of parental age verification and getting parents, having their parents permission to use social media and sort of enhanced parental controls. I think, you know, we heard even in the hearing just last month, i think it was snap pwho said, just 400,000 of our teenagers have enabled parental supervision. Thats like 2 of their platform. My own reporting shows that metas Safety Experts have been concerned about this idea that relying on parents to police their own kids Online Activity might not be the most effective strategy. And yet it does seem like one, you know, that lawmakers and even parent advocates can embrace, despite some of the tricky technological issues. I wonder if you can all sort of reflect on, a, what is the best way to verify kids ages these days, and can we even rely on parents to police their own kids activitys . I think our new legislation, the Online Safety education act of 2023, its not fully implemented because the regulations have been drawn up, they have to go back to the government. So we wont actually see any concrete action until probably until the end of this year, digital literacy, all of these things are a crucial part of the total picture. Theyre not an alternative to expecting and demanding that the Tech Companies do their best with the Technology Theyve got available in which they understand better than anybody else. If you, in the United Kingdom, under an agreement i helped negotiate in 2004, if you get a device which depends upon a similar card, so sim card, so a mobile device, particularly a telephone, smartphone, whatever, then it will be by default assumed that you are a child. You will not be able to access pornography, gambling, alcohol, anything at all through that device from the word go unless and until youve been through an age verification process and its established that the normal, everyday owner of that device is an adult. And this is typical of what happens in most with most Consumer Products. You deliver the Consumer Product in the safest possible way at the point of first use. Of course if i wanted to kill myself with an electric fire, i could probably buy a very, very long flex, plug it in at one end and run into a Swimming Pool with the electric fire clasped to my chest. There are certain ways in which, if youre determined to mess things up, you will mess things up. My point is, at the point of first use, the Tech Companies should be under an obligation where children are likely to be most engaged with the product or the service to ensure that its as safe as it possibly can be. The parents can liberalize the settings if they want to but at the point of first use, it should be in its safest possible condition. I very much agree with a lot of what john just said. I think that platforms have been very enthusiastic about legislation around parental permission to access. The parents we talked to are very clear that that doesnt really solve many of the problems because the choice a parent faces then is, do i socially isolate my kid and deny that permission, or do i say, ok, and then they have access to a platform that just has all the same problems because all weve done is pass a permission to access regulation. And also very much ill agree with the sentiment that the strongest default settings and protections need to be in place when a child accesses the platform and i think that thats an important piece of this conversation as we think about what these state parental permission bills mean. Id like to add on. I think will the problem we have with age verification in the United States, is i mean, basically right now were in a world where we assume everyones an adult unless they affirmatively say theyre a child and a lot of the proposals on the table assume everyones a child unless you prove that youre an adult. And for many adults, you know, there are privacy concerns with that and for many children there are privacy concerns with that. I think when were talking about, for example, some of these state laws, like utah, right, this is a state that theyve said that they think some of these apps are so unsafe they cant be on government devices, yet they want to have a law that says, you know, every parent has to now upload a copy of their i. D. And give a copy of their personal i. D. To these same apps. Theres a serious conflict there and i think we need to have alternative options. So, for example, one of the options that itif has come up with is a way to empower parents with a trusted child app so you can put it in child mode, once you give it to them, every app, every site you visit after that would have to respect that child, if its an adult. Something like that gets around having to verify age or i. D. Its no longer about this kind of legalistic, are you 18, are you 16 or whatever threshold we want to put. Which, you know, the problem with that is, one, its kind of substituting government oversight for parental oversight. And, two, not all children are the same. Right . Some 16yearolds probably can handle certain things that 18yearolds cant and vice certificate is a. Theres such a never is a. Theres such a vice versa. Theres such a big range. Can we take these controls you mentioned that arent being well use and think about how can we make them so they are well useed . One of the problems and reasons parents dont use these child safety features right now is because there are so many of them. You have to go and you have to figure out the one for this social network and another social network and this device and another device. Theres no interoperability between any of that. Our point is, why dont we work on actually making this all Work Together . So that you can give one child one device, you can screen time that applies across a chrome book and an ipad and their window desraoeufplts you can do device. You can do much more with that than trying to say, ok, were going to ban certain types of features on certain types of social media sites or require everyone to display their i. D. We. Know people dont want to do that and people rightly are concerned with their privacy. Wow, my heads going to explode. I agree that we should be providing the safest possible environment for kids. Ive spent my whole life working toward that goal. But i think when we talk about the Public Safety aspects of this problem which we do not talk about nearly enough, were overlooking the fact that were not talking about having like, i live in a town of 3,000 people. 30 miles north we have a wonderful Little Police department. Were not talking about having policemen sit on the systems, right. Worry talking about were talking about breaking up global criminal enterprises that are not just terrorizing kids, theyre terrorizing the companies too. And so at some point we skip this part of the conversation. You know, i was reading the other night that there was this this is from one of the proparent groups. Traditionally the onus has been put on parents. But this doesnt get to the root of the problem. We skipped a huge element there which is that as crime moved from the real world into cyberspace, forget illegal obligation, we have a moral obligation to tackle that and were not doing it. Why are we even bothering to collect the cyber tips if Something Like 3,000 out of every 100,000 cyber tips are even examined . I mean, the notion that we are doing enough to protect kids in this conversation is preposterous. And quite frankly, by shifting the blame directly to the Tech Companies, were missing a huge opportunity to protect kids. We talk about data praoeufbg seufplt i see my good friend praoeufb seufplt i see my good privacy. I see my good friend, rick, is here and we banter about encryption a lot of time. I spent a lot of time working on Identity Theft in children. Its a huge problem. If you think the problems of exploitation online are a problem, come look at those numbers. And so ive had a lot of concerns about weakening encryption. We want to help Law Enforcement but whats next . We just strip away the miranda warnings . Weve got to find a better way to do this. And encryption is the backbone of protecting kids and every single consumer. We talk about children and data privacy. Hello. Its a nightmare. Lets talk, again, about some of the ph e meta plaintiffs. Ive been looking at these states for 40 years. I started my work in california where they were routinely issuing multiple Social Security numbers to kids so they could make multiple title claims to the feds for their kids in foster care. If youre a child in foster care, were talking about meta monetizing kids data without parental consent, if you have Social Security benefits, the state is taking them from you without anybodys permission and youre leaving the foster care system destitute. Im finding this whole conversation a little troubling because i see a huge disconnect between the lack of outrage about those practices that are going on in the real world and by a lot of the people who are now directing attention to the Tech Companies, because it directs attention away from them. And i think that theres a lack of consistency. I mean, we could talk about utah all day, ok. These state rules that are being put forth, lets just use my favorite example, my least favorite democrat, gavin newsom. Naomi can we wait on gavin newsom for one second . Sure. But were going to get to tkpwafbg innewsom gavin newsom. [laughter] can i just make a there is a project which im chairman of which is trying to develop an International Framework for doing age verification. So the problem that you were mentioning about having to jump between different platforms, different methods for doing it, should be sold. It was originally funded by the European Union. Its now funded by the u. N. Im the chairman of its advisory board. So we recognize the point the problem that youve raised. And it should become smoother and easier. Meta is part of ther experiment that were involved in and other Tech Companies are as well. I think its important that no ones really objecting to gambling sites and keeping children off that. The questions come up when were talking about sites and Many Services that have a broad range of users that are i think about if you look at how children children are most likely to be have amputations because of lawn mowers. Right . We could have i. D. Checks for lawn mowers so that you cant push a lawn mower if youre under the age of 18 but we dont. Right . We expect parents to be responsible in this space and we expect there to be a balance. That doesnt mean we sell lawn mowers that are intentionally dangerous but this is where we need more of a balance and more of a respect for the fact that there are going to be multiple types of parents and standards and what we want out there and it cant just be treat everything like a gambling site on the internet. Because theyre not. Naomi i think one of the so one of the laws that was getting a lot of air play during the hearing was kids Online Safety act, kosa. That would establish some reasonable measures that Tech Companies could take to prevent harm. But its been are concerned that it might empower state attorneys general to limit certain types of content for vulnerable youth like our lgbtq communities. Im wondering, i want to start with you just because you brought up newsom, who how do we even define what is harmful content for kids and should the state attorneys general in some of these states really be the decider of whats actually harming our kids or not . Oh, god no. I mean, first of all, i think it was Justice Stewart who said, he knew pornography when he saw it. So its a very subjective matter. So one of the reasons that ive become so concerned about the role that state attorneys general have played in all of this is that, a, no individual state is regulating the internet. Right . And also, as Child Welfare and adoption and other issues i do a lot of work on over the years have been viewed as state law issue, they have become so fundamentally interstate and interlaw activities, that i dont believe the states can adequately control or enforce them anyway. I mean, one of the reasons that i frankly pulled away from supporting kosa is that the state attorneys general are not enforcing their existing Child Welfare statutes. Much less adding all this new stuff on. That theyre not experts in to begin with. So heres the gavin newsom example of why leaving it up to the states is a bad idea. So gavin newsom had this, you know, flashy press conference talking about a bill that california passed that was supposed to be fantastic and solve the problem and protect children in california. And at the same time they were letting thousands of pedophiles out of prison on early release. One guy served a whopping two days in the l. A. County jail for a pretty gruesome crime. Now, this is the crime that has arguably the highest recidivism rate of any category of criminal activity and, first of all, it was a miracle that any of these guys were convicted because one of my concerns is that the conviction rates, as against the sao eurp tip numbers, are negligentable, so really, gavin, im not really that interested in having you or mr. Bond to do anything that has to do with protecting children because theres a fundamental hypocrisy to that kind of disconnected thinking. And as far as the states are concerned, what were talking about is dramatically interstate activity most of the time. There is no way that they can really wrap their arms around it. So these states laws have just become this performtific exercise. So im really not at this moment im not going to support any bill that doesnt focus on the criminal justice aspects of the problem and that leaves anything up to the state attorneys general because i just dont think that theyve done a good job with kids, no the just on this, but on anything not just on this, but on anything. Naomi others have a viewpoint . I might add to this conversation. I think that theres been a lot of important discussion around the kids Online Safety act and the duty of care over the past two years now. I think the bill in its current iteration is pretty clear that its not meant to impact the existence of any single piece of content. It says very clearly in the duty of care that this isnt about a child searching. I think that theres an important distinction to be made between holding platforms responsible for the mere existence of content, which is protected under section 230 of the Communications Decency act, and the decisions they make about what they are actually promoting into our feeds, because they are training algorithms and targeting metrics and we know that more outrageous content gets more eye balls and therefore ends up pushed onto feeds and so i think thats an important piece of this conversation as we continue to talk about how we can conceptualize kosa. I also think that the text knits current iteration is clear that it runs to the design and operation of the platforms. And thats really what were trying to get at is that features and functions are just simply not the same as just the mere existence of content. Ky just make a quick comeback on that point about the states substituting parents rights. Absolutely not how we see it in europe. Whatq we see and i might remind you, the United States of america is the only country in the world thats not signed the United Nations oh, i have a lot to say about that, john. And theyre never going to. Its a false scenario. Its immensely relative right now. The point is, we accept that the state has an obligation to help parents, particularly in complex areas like this. Apple 6s biggest lesson, 1 of apple users ever use any of the safety tools theyve put on there. Its quite clear that there is a disconnect between what we expect and hope and would like parents to do and whats actually happening. And what were saying with our legislation in the United Kingdom is thats over. Were not going to take fine words from tech executives about their hopes and aspirations, were not going to let them mark their own homework anymore. This is a key piece of our new legislation. There will be legal obligations on Tech Companies to report in detail the risk assessments that theyre taking in relate to how relation to how child users of their service are faring in terms of that service, and the steps that theyre taking to make sure that those problems are minimized or disappear. And if they tell lies, and by the way, they have done in the past, somebody will go to jail. Because another unique feature of our legislation is there are criminal sanctions being attached to the reports obligations under our legislation. And i expect well see how it works. We have a new regulator that will be undertaking the work here. But weve had it with fine words and promises from tech executives. That period is ended. Were in a new era where the states [indiscernible] but the way, this went through with full party support. Nobody voted against this legislation when it went through the british parliament. That is extremely rare. Extremely unusual. But it happened. So can i john, you know, i emailed you about this over the weekend. The Tech Companies are not shielded from federal criminal prosecution right now. And quite frankly, one of the reasons that i am so kean on Law Enforcement is that they shouldnt be marking their own homework. If there are companies out there that are conspiring with [indiscernible] lets put them in jail. Theres absolutely no scenario in which existing u. S. Law does not provide exactly the sanctions that youre seeking. [indiscernible] heres the thing. You can talk about that stuff all you want. And i agree that we want to have safe platforms but you have skipped over the entire discussion of Public Safety. And so if youre dealing with im working with the victim of sextortion right now. Shes a lovely young woman and k from a horrible experience. But really, do you think that any platform can push back on an International Global ring of sextortionists without some help . You think that all of these issues that were talking about cannot be bolstered, in fact, strengthened by having a Public Safety response too . Theyre not alternatives. Then i just have to address this u. S. Versus the world thing. The u. S. Framework of Child Welfare laws is very different from international standards. Ive worked all over the world. The u. S. Is never going to ratify the u. N. Convention on the rights of of the child for better or worse because our framework around children is more like property law than human rights law. But at the same time ive looked in detail at the global Law Enforcement response to this problem and guess what. Nobodys doing a good job. Right . Why . Because there isnt enough investment in Public Safety. There isnt enough investment in collaboration. There isnt enough focus on the criminal activity that is fueling the victimization of kids. Ive got eight children. Two daughters and six stepchildren who, all of whom i raised. 17 grandchildren. Those kids range from age there 46 to 6 56 to 6. So ive seen every possible application in my own family of the evolution of technology. And would that it were so simple that a company could just wave a magic wand and create a safe space. But if were not creating a safe space for the company to do business in, theyre certainly not going to be able to create a safe space for kids. And im not here to defend the Tech Companies but i am here to tell you that ive been doing this for a long time. And i can tell you that if you ignore the criminal activity that is fueling the suicide rates and by the way, this whole discussion of Mental Health has a lot to do with a lot of things and not technology, and by the way, i havent heard anybody talk about the positive things that technology does for kids right this minute. Naomi i do want to get there, actually. Lets get there. Because its an important part of the conversation. Naomi yeah, i agree. If i can just i wanted to fine point on why kosa is a problem at the state level. The problem is, if you look around the past year, weve had these heated debates in many states around book bans and other types of content where, you know, we are seeing state legislators substituting their view about what we see this at the lower level as well, substituting their view about what content is appropriate and what content is not. And even though the legislation says theyre not trying to focus on any specific content, i mean, just think of the last hearing we saw and think about what that hearing will look like if a law like kosa was on the books. Every c. E. O. Would be theyd have a parade of content from Third Party Content and saying, why did you think this was appropriate for children . Did you not have a duty of care to take this down . We would just see more of the same political theater. Where it will be about the content and it will be very subjective about what content is allowable and what content is not. To the point about are we actually helping children at the end of this, i mean, one of the concerns i have with a lot of these bills is its basically taking more and more of the internet away from children. The idea of course, theyre saying were doing this in ways to protect children. Were also taking a lot of the value away from children. And increasingly whats left for children on the internet is a very use isnt very useful, unless you have money to pay for paid software, paid apps, paid services. So if you want the future of the internet to benefit children of all backgrounds, those who can afford things and those who cant, we need an adsupported internet that delivers value. Now, we want to make sure were not delivering them harmful ads but it will be adsupported. Just like much of other public content that we have on broadcast tv was adsupported content. Naomi i think both of you actually talked a little bit about some of the promises of social media. I think one of the things we heard some of the tech c. E. O. s talk about is actually a lot of teens, their whole lives are on social media, right . They find connection, they find communities, they find people they wouldnt have otherwise maybe met. Most people who use social media dont face a tragic story that we heard about during the hearing. And i think theres starting to be an argument about, you know, is there a sense in which some of this is a bit of a moral panic . Like, are we just sort of fretting about social media in the same way that we once fretted about video games or other sorts of television and other sorts of technology . And im wondering if you all can reflect on that idea and what you might tell regular parents about how concerned we actually should be about some of the risks weve discussed here today. Ill start briefly. I think the comparison with video games is very appropriate. If i think back to columbine, right, right after columbine people were looking for something to blame and what they could do. B and the answer then was video games. Video games was seen as the problem and video games, you know, weve seen clearly regulating that would not have addressed all the School Shootings weve seen since then. There were other problems there. I think the same thing is going on with social media where part of the frustration i think a lot of parents have, myself included with this debate, is it takes attention away from the real issues. If were talking about real issues that are going to help children, more Law Enforcement, Better Safety nets for children, more counseling, theres so much more that we can be doing to help children, address childrens needs and its not about childrens needs and its not about weather were having audio play on social media. Kids used to go to school on horseback and now they ride buss that might crash. Theres always a generational thing going on here. At the moment, the Ukrainian Government is looking for tens of thousands of children that were be a ducted by the russian abducted by the russians and how are they doing that . Theyre using a. I. And theyre using a. I. To scrape the images that russians are putting out of kids and theyre matching them with images from parents reported them missing and theyre geotagging their pictures and we know where 23,000 of those kids are probably. We look at the way that over a million kids have been adopted from foster care in the last 20 years that probably would have had a hard time finding families if it werent for the internet. We look at all of the educational applications of kids. During covid, i mean, good lord. Kids would have been dead in the water without having some Technology Access to education, to Mental Health services, and from where i sit, looking at a massively underserved population of kids of all kinds, we look at technology as the new frontier in terms of delivering adequate Mental Health services in particular to all kinds of children, for all kinds of reasons. But when you talk about a moral panic, i think theres another aspect of this that really hasnt been discussed and that is opportunism. When people started to figure out that they might be able to sue the Tech Companies who have some pretty deep pockets, that seemed like a pretty attractive alternative. Now, again, i look at that and go, ok, theyre mandated reporters so if youre going to start suing them, you need to start skewing your pastor, teacher, school nurse, all the other mandated reporters and in the meantime, by the way, because theyre not mandated reports, lets go after the gun manufacturers because theyre shielded from liability and they kill a lot more kids than facebook does. So i think that there has been this sort of masterful manipulation of the message that has departed sharply from what i would consider and a lot of other people would consider to be best practices in Child Welfare. Mandated reporting has been around since 1974 and thank god it is because it saves a lot of kids lives. As far as the issues of suicide and other side effects of being victimized by criminals, well, i say, lets just give it a shot. Lets see what happens if we go after the organized criminal enterprise on the internet. Because you know what i think will happen. It will be safer. And it will be safer for everybody. Just simple. Naomi other thoughts . My issue with the moral panic framing is that these harms have been realized, theyre not imaginary. We have a lot of youth advocates and a lot of families saying they need help. I think there are many wonderful things for kids and teens online and, you know, our driving sort of motivation behind this advocacy is that they should be able to learn and play and socialize free fm these incentives that currently exist because of a lack of regulation. Kids are not going onto a social media feed and just seeing what their friends have posted. They are seeing things that are being pushed to them because a platform has decided it is such in order for it to be profitable. And so i think the fact is that we talk with families week in and week out who have experienced the very worst of this and have struggled very mightily against it. And this is something, we have the American Psychological association and the u. S. Surgeon general saying these features and functions will exacerbate issues for kids and overcome their own sort of developing sense of things like when to log off and go outside and thats why taking action is so necessary. Of course the internets been hugely beneficial for the vast majority of children in society as a whole. Were not here to celebrate i hope thats not what were here to talk about. Were here talk to about the bits that arent getting the right degree of attention and the damage thats done to children through the way youve just described it is huge and life long. So what i suppose in the u. K. What we basically said is, were going to compel you to do the stuff that youve been saying you want to do. Because we dont think youre doing it consistently enough, we dont think youre developing enough resources, so were going to put the force of law behind it. Were going to make you honest. Were going make you keep the promises that youve been making with your fine words over so many years which so far have not produced a good enough result. And can i just say on the child sex abuse thing, if you looked at my bibleography, the subjects ive written most about and lectured most on is victims of child sexual abuse on the internet. But thats the very, very serious, huge issue and im not trying to minimize or reduce it in any way whatsoever, but there are also other things too that have very little to do with organized crime and everything to do with the way algorithms work. Oh, john. All right. Now were having some fun. Listen, i started working with the Boston Globe Spotlight Team on the Catholic Church abuse cases in 2001. Most of that abuse didnt happen on the internet. Ok . So again, the moral panic aspect of this sort of ignores the underlying cultural issues, the underlying criminal issues and the underlying just sense of wellbeing of children. And, you know, at some point and god knows as a mother i feel this keenly, we have to also make a decision of where do we as parents draw the line, where do we as parents take control of our childrens lives . I can tell you right now, because i have spent almost 40 years looking at it, the government makes a terrible parent. And there are right this minute 500,000 kids in forest ever foster care here to tell you that is true. So it really concerns me, as much as i am concerned about child safety, that we hand any of these overarching decisionings to the government, especially decisions to the government, especially when it might be elected official whose ideological positions will change from administration to administration. And take it away from parents. And if you look at whats happened to the real worlds Child Welfare system, which is really with what i call familiar policing family policing had some very damaging effects, not necessarily a world we want to build in cyberspace. Naomi you might have gotten in the last word because weve run out of time. I dont know that there was any more ingredient here on this panel as there was in Congress Last month, but obviously this is an important issue well have to continue discussing as we find out what the right policy solutions are. Thank you for sharing your perspectives and thank you for listening. [applause] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. Visit ncicap. Org] [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2024] all right. So, we are going to do a quick turnaround here. In this room, we will have a. I. Governance puzzle assembling the pieces of policy and trust. That will be starting momentarily. The other rooms weve got ditch the glitch, the new network responsiveness approaches a better broadband user experience. And the high court and online expression, desiring deciphering the legal landscape. Were going to get started in a minute so get settled and well get going. Hi, everyone. Hello, hello. Hello . Hi. Were going to get started here. Thank you all for joining us today for about the current state of a. I. Governance. [indiscernible] im a tech policy reporter for bloomberg government. And im going to have each of the panelists quickly [indiscernible] dive right in. Awesome. Ill go ahead and go first by virtue of seating order. Im travis hall, im the acting associate administer. As a national telecommunications, sorry, you asked for a short introduction, my title is very, very long. I run our policy shop for t. I. Within the department. Our assistant secretary spoke earlier and im looking forward to the panel. Thank you. Hi, everyone. Im miranda, director of the a. I. Governance lab at c. D. T. Were a Civil Society organization, has been doing a lot of work when it comes it a. I. I do work on figuring out what comes next in the a. I. Governance conversation. How do we implement these ideas that are floating around and how do we tackle some of the emerging questions that are coming around the more advanced a. I. Models. I am the a. I. And data privacy lead for work day here in the United States. Workday is an Enterprise Cloud Software Company providing Enterprise Solutions both in h. R. And Financial Management to 70 of the fortune 50, 10,000 organizations around the world. And we have about 65 million users under contract. Im a senior fellow at the institute here in washington. Ive spent 32 years doing tech policy for a variety of different academic institutions and think tanks. My real claim to fame is ive attended every single state of the net conference. Tim gives me a little fake chairman sticker to put on my thing. Im not the chairman of anything but ive been to all of them. I think the first one we had like Alexander Graham bell as a keynoter and a tech demonstration from mark coney or Something Like that. Glad to be here again. Great. So lets start off with setting some context. Almost a year ago, the a. I. Frenzy really hit washington. And weve seen so much go on since then. The Biden Administration has taken action on a. I. Congress is moving to take action on a. I. Beyond the federal level, states are moving to try to regulate this technology. The rest of the world is moving to try to regulate this technology. So i guess my question to you all is why . Why are we seeing governments try to respond to a. I. And why now . Ill take a stab first and simply say that this is not actually a new topic, its not a new work stream. Its a new name for it but we have seen iterations of conversations for over a decade and a half. Right . Under the obama administration, it was big data. Weve been talking about algorithm bice and description bias and description for a very discrimination for a very long time. All of these topics in termination of collection and use of data and the impact on peoples lives, weve been engaged in in various stages over quite a long time. And one of the things that i think has captured the mantle nation currently imagine currently is it takes some of the policy conversations that felt depends pater, some of the depends par at, some of the disparate, some of the conversations where people were having different conversations, and focuses it on a single piece of technology, a single focal point of like potential both excitement but also risk and harm. And then we also just simply, about, you know, a year and a half ago, right, had a series of products that came out that really, really were cool and fun and exciting and accessible and you could play with and you could make images and you could write lullabyes to your daughter, you know, about basically any topic you could think of. And then it also really brought to the foresome of the potential fore some of the potential risks about these technologies. In ways that i think people, again, in policy circles and tech circles have been talking about for a long time and really made a little bit of a Lightning Strike for the public. As our assistant secretary said this morning, we actually struck that lightning a little bit because we have been working on a project on a. I. Accountability, a. I. Accountability policy, looking at how to do audits and certifications and things like that, and have been doing that for about eight months, it takes a long time to clear documents through the federal government. And put out the request for comment right when interest was peaked and we brought in over 1400 comments where usually comments are 50 to 200 or so. And because everyone was so keenly interested, so keenly aware. And overall i think that that public awareness, that attention from government is in general a good thing. People are coming together, having some of these hard conversations, again, building on some of these past conversations that weve had, but i do think that that kind of many different issue areas coming together, kind of a single piece of technology, a single moment of people being really interested and excited and concerned really helped to draw this attention to the fore. I think in those early years there was a pocket of policymakers, Civil Society group, researchers, who understood that the infrastructure that was being built, data, was going to power all sorts of experiences that would Effect People but not that people were experiencing directly and could attribute to the technology. That was one of the things that changed. Theres now a language to this technology, theres an interface that just makes it much more present. So in that way, a. I. Has become a lens through which people are projecting a lot of different concerns. A lot of different policy concerns. Some of which have to do with the technology itself, and some of which are macro issues that technology is just a fastmoving train to jump on and try to get the energy that has kinds of come up around a. I. To tackle an issue that maybe theyve been asking to be tackled for quite some time but the challenges in d. C. Have meant that we havent tackled those issues. Its an interesting moment because i think it does give us an opportunity to revisit some, you know, conversations we had about privacy, for instance. Still dont have a federal data privacy legislation, but privacy might end up in some kind of a. I. Related vehicle, for better or worse. Copy riot, labor, copyright, a. I. Can make those issues worse but could be a vehicle to try to get to Creative Solutions in and try to get the attention on those issues that people havent felt that theyve gotten. I think the question is why now. I think were still asking ourselves that question because i think very much like travis and miranda just pointed out, these issues have been around for quite some time. As a company, workday has been using a. I. For about a decade. So i think what we are seeing as new is a trust gap. Because these issues have gone to the forefront of public debate, you know, theres been some serious concern among policymakers about how do you address those risks while also harnessing the real significant benefits of a. I. When its developed and deployed responsibly . So we actually have some numbers now behind that trust gap so workday published a research, some research that we had done last month and we found that in the workplace, that trust gap is very real. So about four and five employees have said that their employers have not issued responsible a. I. Guidelines about how its worked used in the workplace. Similarly, only 52 of workers found that a. I. Is that they trust a. I. Being used responsibly in the workplace. And so i think the policymakers are responding to that real gap in trust and can we as a company, were here to help them address that while also trying to understand the Great Potential benefits of this tech. Just to link everything thats already been said which i agree with, you know, travis pointed out in some ways theres nothing theres been debates this shes issues for a long time. Theres a new tkpwhraos, everything being gloss, everything being viewed through the lens of a. I. I think thats what makes this he it bait interesting is because its this debate interesting because its the confluence of many different debates into one. And everybody is now interested in legislating on issues that weve long been debating through the prism of a. I. Regulation. And especially not just the federal level, states, local and even international. So multilayered kind of interest. What you hear at every single congressional hearing and all of the different sessions on a. I. Around this town and other state houses is, like, we cant allow what happened to the internet to happen to a. I. What does that exactly mean . Because we got a lot about the internet right and americas become a Global Leader on Digital Technology and ecommerce thanks to a really enlightened policy vision, in my view. But now theres a reassessment of that, the wisdom of that. And a question about governments moment, like, we have for a. I. That we may have sort of maybe not taken as seriously for the internet. I remember, because im such an old dinosaur, being around when at the table when we were writing the early drafts of the telecom act and the internet was not found in the telecom act. And so we had this interesting sort of accidental fortuitous moment where the governance of this new thing was a very light touch, kind of very simple approach, compared to traditional analogueainge media analogueage media but now were thinking of reversing that and going in a different direction with a preemptive approach to algorithms and governance regulation. You brought up a good point about the conversation today around a. I. Is we dont want to repeat the mistakes of the past when it comes to the internet and social media. But i guess my question is, is that a correct comparison to draw . Because all of you just mentioned how this technology, it encompasses so much more and it touches on everything. So when youre thinking about a. I. Regulation, are you actually regulating the technology or are you kind of filling in the gaps or addressing these longheld debate longtime longtime debates that ai is bringing to the surface . Are certainly absent thing to say about that good i wrote a study on the proposals in front of congress. The answer is a little bit of both. There is an effort to actually try to use ai to regulate individual policies silos privacy, child safety, security, so on and so forth and various other technocratic areas, ai in employment, medicine, whatever. Those are interesting debates. But the interesting debate is the macro debate we are having right now that is diverting a lot of time and attention about regulating ai as a generalpurpose technology. That is very, very different and unique and is sucking up a lot of the oxygen from the Committee Rooms as people talk about existential risks of ai on highlevel macro relation of ai. In my peace i said ill my piece i said i dont think this is why anything is going to be done by congress. Having more concrete policy debate about the silos and issues that have been on the table for a long, long time. You can get traction on a lot of those things, no ai but now ai has come along and develop a lot of that flows we should have had a privacy bill last year. And now this section we cant even get introduced. Where is the driverless car bill . It has been derailed by highlevel regulating Ai Governance and that is a nonstarter. Miranda i think the thing that people realized from taking the pastor Technology Th path to technology of lets wait and see, it could provide a lot of benefit, we saw a lot of the externalities that came from that. I think what people are realizing from ais a lot of those externalities are predictable. There are some that might be more speculative that we dont want to tackle before we understand what the shape of those risks are. There are a lot of impacts technology has had on marginalized communities that it is very clear that without thoughtful approach in the right incentives of the people Building Technology to prioritize those externalities, they will be left behind. The question is what is where is the intervention point . In some cases there might be intervention points that are at the level of ai data sets or documentation where there is some set of recommendations, rules, guidance that play a role in the matter what where the ai is being integrated. In other cases the correct intervention point might be more at the implementation layer. Then you get back into the sort of vertical areas and the approach that adam was mentioning. Without the foundational interventions, maybe you dont have enough information in the context of deployment to know what ai system has been used or four regulars to have the information they need to take action. Figuring out what is the appropriate division, what are the things that can be tackled in the ai circumstance, where there is a specifications that need to come up in different contexts. There been proposals for there to be some riskrelated designation that agencies wouldnt determine which types of implementation would determine which types of implementations would fall into which risks. In certain contexts there is heightened requirements because of the implications of the Plane Technology in that context. Figuring out and not letting evening be bundled into everything will be important to find those levers and tools. I think you hit it on the had come which is taking a riskbased approach, focusing on the potential impacts to individuals. The way we think about this the European Union and state level focusing on consequential decisions, consequential impacts , we know there are some agreement across the aisle about focusing on things like hiring decisions. Folks generally agree that if in terms of credit, Credit Ratings or Credit Offering or extension of credit or health care, the these are the core essential elements of human life that we all agree that are those highimpact areas. Rather than having an allencompassing ai approach that would likely ever use of ai just regulate every use of ai, focusing that would regulate every use of ai, focusing on those uses of technology. Travis and this is a more nuanced conversation. Im like adam, since 2015 but the conversation right now about these issues has developed in terms of policymakers thinking about these issues, having constituents calling them about these issues. We are in a place where, to mirandas point, we can recognize what the potential externalities are. We have real case studies of what they are in analogous cases. Not necessarily internet, but other algorithms. It goes back to that landing in a bottle moment, capturing peoples imaginations lightning in a bottle moment, capturing peoples imaginations and risks and harms making intuitive sense, people grasping how these technologies will affect their lives where it took a lot longer for the internet to be taken up. It has to be deployed. We are still deploying it. For me there is the sense of immediacy, the need to think about these issues, but i think in a positive light that the policy conversation is a lot more nuanced and mature in terms of how to think about it. Some of the difficulties are that and to technology in terms of the technologies themselves, Artificial Intelligence is an umbrella term for a family of technologies that encompass a panoply of uses, a broad set of uses that are actually quite different. To our earlier conversation, this can be a little bit of a Christmas Tree of tech issues and things that people are concerned about in terms of overall stuff that arent necessarily issues for Artificial Intelligence. And that is where that nuance and subtle distinction can be quite difficult, because the technology is actively changing and shifting and you get technical experts in the room and the technical experts disagree environmental wise about what the technology can do. It is not that either one of them are necessarily wrong, it is that it hasnt proved out yet. We are the train is further ahead than it was before. Oma miranda and evangelos brought up what is going on in the ee with the ai act. Obviously in congress the eu with the ai act. Obviously in congress we dont know if there will be an equivalent ever, but there is a lot of comparisons at least now to what the white house has done on ai considering the sweeping executive orders that came out last fall. Would you say that was the United States setting this foundational approach to ai policies is what the ai order mainly serves to do . And if you could briefly tell us what this executive order does. Miranda the is working on the ai effort the you was working on the ai effort eu was working on the ai effort for years before this big moment. Eu focused on other big efforts like privacy legislation and it is not thinking about a holistic approach, it is now thinking about what i holistic approach would look like, but it does take some time. It was clear in that moment out there was action needed. Executive order talks about a lot of different angles to this problem. It looks at the foundational issues like automated decisions, government uses of ai, enforcement of existing laws, privacyenhancing technologies, security components, and a newer considerations around longer term risks, National Security implications, geopolitical dynamics, things like that. It got a lot of credit for including so many different perspectives in that document and it was one of the longest executive orders that had ever existed, if not the longest. I dont know if anyone is able to actually prove that. It goes to show the importance of the topic coming up and the number of different angles that people were prioritizing getting into that vehicle. And i think we are seeing a lot of movement coming out of that. The timelines are pretty short. A lot of agencies are undertaking the requirements, and not everything is conjured fruition yet. We that has come to fruition. Not everything is come to fruition yet. Executive orders are somewhat fragile. If we have a change of administration, there could be some backtracking there. But it did provide at the very least momentum for agencies and for the industry players. I spent time in industry and im curious what you think, evangelos, but having voices saying people building this technology have to take a certain set of steps really does give more license for internal folks to commit money and spend time of those things. How will we make sure that momentum continues and how do you make sure that attention is not overly narrow on only the most advanced types of ai. You need that seem level same level of care and diligence among people Building Technology even for similar systems because they can have Significant Impact on people as the more advanced ones might have in the future. It is just difficult to imagine what that might look like. That is one of the places where the eo there were questions about what is the scope of focus and how do we make sure the administrations broader focus on automated decisions and impact on consumers and people doesnt get lost in this new moment. Evangelos i think comparing the executive order and the eu ap is apples and oranges. The executive order is in landmark executive order but it is just that, an executive order. It is something that we have rolled up our sleeves to assist wherever we can with the administration pit i would just point out some with the administration. I would just point out two elements that will have an impact on the landscape. The first is pretty new, the ai safety consortium, which workday is a Founding Member of. There is a general recognition about the lack of standards which are needed to underpin effective, scalable Ai Governance, and the ai safety and student is going to fill that gap. Pooling resources and expertise and talent as the under secretary of commerce put it, a new measurement science, which is exciting. We are happy to be part of that. Second in terms of potential impact is the ombs draft ai executive memorandum, which will govern how the federal government acquires and uses ai if it procures and deploys. It is pretty ambitious. You read it. Its informed by the commercialoriented ai proposals we have seen elsewhere in other jurisdictions. On the whole it landed an uppity good place. It focused dish in a pretty good place. Invoke on the whole it landed in a pretty good place. It relies on Ai Governance and shoutout to the Risk Management framework. If that is fully lamented, it will have a Significant Impact fully implemented, it will have a Significant Impact on how the government pursues i. T. Modernization and the broader landscape as a whole. I will just say thank you to michael panelist to my co panelists for summarizing the ai order. I thought that was my job, but i appreciate it. There are hot deadlines blueprints such as a report on foundational models where we are the president s principal adviser on Telecommunications Policy and we provide advice and we are not a regulator and not going out and actually going to be immediately putting out rules. But we are putting out a report on this that will then feed into policy. It will feed into future conversations, future legislation, things like that. There is a number of such reports and a number of such activities where the seeds are being planted. We have 270 days since executive order was passed in order to write this. Part of my brain is thinking about that right now. [laughter] but this is going to be there is going to be a number of things that come out of the executive order that are going to have a longerterm lasting effect that are not things that are going to be done and immediately completed on day 2 70. I do agree that a regulation as sweeping as a European Union regulation as opposed to directives is a different beast than an order. But i do think that we are all very proud of having put out such a powerful, such an ultimately impactful policy document with multiple moving parts where it is the entirety of the administration that is currently working on this. It is not simply a Single Agency or a single department, although the department of commerce has gotten a lot better a lot to my colleagues. Even though they are very different beasts, the ai executive order is going to be extraordinarily impactful for the reasons evangelos noted but also for some of the smaller bits and pieces that are included in that are going to have a longerterm effect. [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, i just want us i just want to say a few words about the executive order. It takes and everything but the kitchen sing approach to addressing all things algorithmic, and that is wellintentioned, but the reality is it over shoots by quite a bit. Stuff about the defense production act, stuff about empowering the federal trade commission, department of labor, other things. These are meant for congress to do. These are legislative functions. I understand executive orders response to dysfunction and inaction, but some of these things are never reached that will ultimately, are overreach double ultimately be that will ultimately be immediately eliminated by the next president. I think there is a lot of pushback about what is in the order or just the order itself and how big it is. Will that Mean Congress gets its act together and does its job . I dont know, but i think it is a different discussion because the executive order. Miranda i do think it is important that the executive order noted the agencies acting under existing authority to enforce the laws that exist where the technologies that are impacting those areas because agencies the implementation of these systems in context requires that domain expertise and probably some technical insight that legislation might not be able to get precisely in whatever context if they end up putting something together. Agencies are going to play a really Important Role here, and we hope that they will be proactive in thinking about how technologies of any kind, ai included, are in their wheelhouse already and what action they can take. Oma so im hearing a little bit of maybe the executive order was too broad in scope, some of the political issues around the executive order. But what are some of the issues potentially arising now that the implementation process is beginning . What are the issues and more the substance of the order . Where did the Administration May be missed the mark . Miranda i think one of the Big Questions that underpins all Ai Governance, how do you define risk, how do you measure and detect it, and then what is required once you measure and detect it. In certain cases that is really important because the measurements that people are coming up with to determine what impact it might have, what capabilities might have, whether it passes a line of some kind, that is going to determine the effectiveness of any interventions, and ill be honest, the measurement science right now is very nascent. It is throwing things at the wall of the moment. That will be important to get right, and nist is good place to do that. But having a reliable way to set a benchmark and say this is probably within bounds of what is acceptable and this surpasses that. Another example that was with the Foundation Models with the widely available models, the executive order sets a threshold of compute as the way to determine when risk might manifest and they know that that is a placeholder, but he was one that did raise a lot of questions about the right way to set the limit. It didnt tell us much about the risk of the model and how many parameters and how much compute was involved. It is not clear that is the hypothesis of the moment. Coming up with better measures for the risks that will be unacceptable where we want regular to come into play that is going to be the crux of effective Ai Governance, knowing when something poses a risk that requires action. Evangelos at the risk of restating something travis has said, theres a lot being done in a short period of time. Getting the right mix of regardless of the context within the executive order, is key to hitting the mark when it comes to the stated policy goal. I mentioned earlier the omb ai memo. Procurement is really complicated. That is what i have learned preparing comments for this. It is on the whole a very positive proposal, but getting the details right matters. It is not missing the mark. I think on the whole the executive order does hit the mark. But making sure that the time is being put in place so that you can listen to stakeholders, take on feedback, amended these proposals as needed so that what we do get is a very high quality product. That is certainly one aspect of the executive order we are keying in on. Adam just a brief word about the nist process because everybody agrees on the Important Role nist display in setting a multistakeholder framework and standards for Ai Governance issues writ large, security and many other issues in terms of ai ethics. But there is now with the executive order and with some legislative proposals an effort to sort of put some potential added enforcement there and utilize the nist framework, which is thus far been a voluntary bottomup into a more regulatory thing. That is not traditionally what nist has done. Nist is not a computational super regulator. There is this subtle but important shift in the governance discussion now about taking that nist role and supercharging it and putting it on steroids, whatever you preferred mixed metaphor is, im giving it some added enforcement. That is the debate we will have this year in a big way. One other thing i need to mention that the executive order and everybodys missing is the absolute explosion of state and local efforts at ai regulation and governance. There was a study last october compute yearoveryear, 440 increase in state and local legislative proposals. In the number of municipal proposals is like nothing ive never seen in the world of tech policy. The eo doesnt do a lot about that and congress hasnt done anything. All the bills that are pending, none of that about preempting the states. This is very different governance for ai and competition then we had for the internet, where we had very clear proposals and policies from the Clinton Administration and congress saying this would be a national, global resource. Global framework for electronic commerce. Go back and look at it, 1997 white house, single best government document for technology ive seen in my life. Ics going into very different direction and a dangerous one with a ics going in a very different direction and a dangerous one with ai especially with Congress Unable to act. Travis may be veering a little bit from the state and local conversation, because it is certainly something we are looking at and thinking about, but not something that we are actively directly working on, but i do want to just put in that executive order did put in a number of steam vents. There are a number of places where instead of making a final decision which it could have done, it actually put in place reports or notices of comment. I just want to point out that omb doesnt always for everything put in comments on its guidance for procurement. That is particularly on something as highlevel and important as this. That is kind of not a regular thing in the executive and the executive order notices the need for that kind of engagement , for that kind of thought. Yes, the deadlines are tight. I personally would love longer deadlines. But that is but i think that this is part of the urgency of the moment. In terms of some of the definitions as well, agencies are given some discretion over interpretation and over future refinement of some of those definitions. I do think that while there while this is a policy document that is attempting to stake some flags in the sand, there is also recognition within the administration that some of those flags might need to be moved and there are mechanisms and ways to do so. Oma and im hearing that the administration, even though this is the first not the first, but one of the most significant steps so far in the ai policy landscape at the federal level, there is still a need for congress to step in. But congress hasnt just yet in terms of actually planting the flag in the way that the white house has. Tell us more about how congress fits into this conversation and what you would like to see from lawmakers on the hill. Evangelos i dont think it is a secret that this is an Election Year, which will make alleges that in more difficult. I will give which will make legislating were difficult. I will give folks on the hill a lot of credit. There has been thoughtful, bicameral attempts to grapple with these technologies and learn possibilities good and bad and figure out a policy way forward. I think whether it is the insight forums or ai working groups, Congress Sometimes gets a bad rap and it is not earned. In terms of what we would like to see, i will say within the realm of again, this is an Election Year would love to see a common sense if targeted approach like the one taken by the federal ai Risk Management act. This is a bill that would require the federal government and Companies Selling to the federal government to adopt ai Risk Management framework. It is incorporating nist product, not making nist super regulator, but it is an important step forward in terms of articulating basic expectations around Ai Governance and would put the federal government in a place where it is really leading in terms of what good Ai Governance looks like. Miranda voluntary purchase voluntary approaches. Practitioners are going to be interpreting a lot of what is coming out of nist for other agencies. At some level and some point, voluntary approaches and i went be enough to change how things are prioritized and practiced, how money is prioritized to be spent. Sitting baseline rules of the road that change that behavior were voluntary communes out of the white house, for instance voluntary commitments out of the white house, for instance, you can use commitment language and truthful simmons to get companies to take action that they wouldnt otherwise take. Make sure that companies developers of ai are integrating sufficient Risk Management practices in the developing of ai and changing the way they make decisions around what should be deployed and under what conditions it i think we need clearer rules there, and as we heard on the panel, that might not be the role of the executive to set. They are doing what they can knowing the attention is on them, but ultimately having something stronger that will be durable that will change those incentives is going to be necessary. What are they focused on come where did those rules land . Unlike there is a lot of bipartisan action theres a lot of bipartisan action at the moment and once we get into the details, that will be the trick of can we find some alignment where people reckon is that those rules will make circumstances better for everyone because it creates certainty and increases trust and set the parameters in a way that conversations move to deeper questions of what other details, what are our values, what do we want to show the world the u. S. s approach is to tackling the challenges . Adam one of the reasons it is bipartisan right now is for committees applying these technologies, there some baseline companies deploying these technologies, there is some baseline agreement in addition to the nist framework, a good baseline of what Ai Governance looks like. It is emerging technical standards, as i will always say. They are still nascent. But when it comes to putting in a Governance Program that manages, measures, and governs the risk of ai, carrying an Impact Assessment predeployment or presale so you understand the potential impacts on protected classes or algorithmic discrimination, being able to provide some baseline of notice to folks that would be impacted by these consequential decisions, i think there is a lot more agreement there around those basic Building Blocks then sometimes we give people credit for. Adam just a brief comment ive given away my claim that we need to break ai policy if we get anything done. But if we go highlevel, some of the things evangelos spoke about, and endorsement from congress on the nist framework, great. I think everybodys behind that. I think the trickier thing is the one i already mentioned about National Framework and what are we going to do about state and local activities. That is going to be extraordinarily tricky. It is hard to preempt things like privacy and cybersecurity. It is going to be even more difficult on ai policy, but a conversation that many people in congress are thinking about. What is also needed and we are not going to get, in fact the exact opposite, is we need financial section 230 for ai that we need a potential section 230 we need potential section 230 for ai. We may not even have a section 230 for the internet anymore, we are one coming from senator hawley getting rid of it. Section 230 was the secret sauce that powered internet commerce and freedom but we run a real risk of backpedaling on that and undermining the computational revolution if we dont get it right for ai. Miranda i think the analogy is somewhat different. Ai systems, if we think of them only as language generators, which is the analogy and use these days, it can end up misdirecting policy conversations. So many ai systems are effectuated outcomes plug into systems that otherwise actors would have some responsibility for. I think making sure we are thinking about going back to the definition of ai certainly generative ai is not the focus of ai that we ought to have when we are thinking about these interventions. And the scope of that conversation will determine what might make more sense from a liability standpoint. Evangelos one of the most help document the administration put out was a joint statement by the ftc, doj, eoc, and cfpb that was a lot of acronyms underscoring that there is no loophole for ai in existing civil rights and Consumer Protection laws. That element of certainty is particularly helpful to the marketplace and one that i think serves as a baseline for us to understand what are the expectations around deploying these tools. Also give a shoutout to work built on top of that. We worked together with the future Privacy Forum a lot of this is concrete. We and a bunch of other ai vendors mapped out what it looks like in practice. Statements like those from the enforcers are particular helpful, but you have to substantiate them in practice. Oma i think for travis i would ask how closely is the administration engaging with the hill on these issues and what with the Administration Like to see from the hill in terms of police the first steps with ai regulation . Travis so, i would say in terms of engagement, we regularly provide Technical Assistance to the hill on a variety of bills. The administration has been very heavily engaged in conversations with the hill. There are lots of open lines of communication on this. It being bipartisan is a very helpful thing with that. In terms of what it is, looking for what the administration wants, i will say two things. The executive order did a good job of laying out where we have existing authority to rely on existing authority, similar to doj, fpb, putting out the statement of what is and is not a loophole. But there is there are other areas where the executive order is putting out reports, guidance, things like that, that at some point in time probably would need to have authorities be enhanced in order to make them fully actualized. On the second point i would say is the president has put out his fy25 budget. Theres a lot of activities that the administration has in there that are focused on helping to fund this type of work. The president has put out his vision for what the budget is and what the budget should be, and certainly that is another area where there is active engagement. Miranda nist has been given a lot of authority and not necessarily the money to go with it. Oma i think there were a couple of legislative proposals mentioned, what i want to ask what bills out there right now are you all paying attention to. There is one mentioned and maybe i will mention one. The create ai act has been thrown around a lot. There are proposals to bna the use of ban the use of deepfakes in federal elections. Where do you see some movement potentially . Adam the election stuff could be an example of breaking issues down a little bit to address them, although im concerned about potential overreach from a First Amendment perspective on some of those issues. At the high level it is difficult. Create ai as got a lot of support. A lot of people in industry are interested in the thune klobuchar bipartisan proposal which looks at high risk systems and tried to narrow the focus a little bit. I think that is envisioning approach. I wrote a paper about it. I think that is an interesting approach. I wrote a paper about it. And then there are other things that would look at expanding government capacity. One of the things we fail to mention is how much ai is already regulated. Our federal government is massively, 2. 2 million civilian employees in 46 different federal departments. The idea that nobody is taking a look at or regulating ais ludicrous. I finished a law review on fda regulation of Machine Learning in algorithmic systems, eeoc is active on this. We will hear from the commissioner later today. We will go with ftcs actions, the letter that went out there. Part of what congress can do is in inventory. What are we already doing on ai policy and how do we maybe support that . That could be the most important shortterm take away, but it is not as sexy as the saying ive got a big grand bill to take care of ai. We get caught up in that debate whether smaller michael debate is more tractable and get action on capitol hill. Travis i will cheat a little bit and give you a state bill in california. We will probably see some momentum around it this year. He does a lot of what i already mentioned, which is it focuses on consequential decisions leverages Impact Assessments, requires Companies Developing and applying these highrisk tools to implement a Governance Program built on the nist Risk Management framework. We have seen california with privacy willing to take the lead here and i think in terms of what realistically we expect, to move the ball forward this year, it is going to come out of california. Short of that, however, we have seen it also influence bills in other states, be it washington state, be it bills in virginia and vermont and new york. I think we are going to teach when a 24 b a year of the states 2024 be a year of the states. Miranda we are watching a lot of different components and some of them will end up in some vehicles and some might try to move on their own. What i am most interested is are the attempts to fill the gaps in existing regulation legislation. Title vii of its been around a long time it has enforcement and power, and others in time there are challenges to individuals who might be experiencing discrimination when it comes to ai because they lack visibility and it is challenging to bring the counter evidence that there might be an alternative that the employer are to abuse commits a run the big thing is forget employer is to use, etc. The big thing is looking at this Building Blocks. How do they know that an ai system was implicated such that they can leverage the existing structures . What sort of third Party Visibility or oversight might be needed to ensure that conduct from that Risk Management is happening to be sufficiently addressing that risk . I think we are following all of those things to make sure that the proposals will out the intended effect and will create that environment of trust. For example, auditing can Impact Assessments have come up quite often as concepts. But the general consensus is there might need to be Something Like that, but what does it look like it right now theres not even a market for the type of expertise that third parties would need to have to do an audit effectively, but that might be critical with some of these fire systems higher systems. How do we make sure the legislation is pointing to the standards that are going to need to be underpinned but also and how do you create the conditions where there are actors that are sufficiently independent to bring the accountability that legislation is going to want to impose in a particular context . Travis fortunately there is an agency in the department of commerce that is coming out with a report on that very subject. Oma so i wanted to get step back and maybe speak to the overall approach. Earlier it was mentioned the riskbased approach, not a onesizefitsall approach. You hear administration officials, members on the hill saying they are trying to strike this balance. We want to promote ai for its many benefits and we want to stay competitive with china, but at the same time want to protect americans from these visits and concerns and harms risks and concerns and harms. But how do you ensure that all these voices are being heard in terms of all the different stakes of ai regulation . How do you strike that balance . There is concerns come of course, of industry playing too much of a role in regulation, o r an outsized role. There are concerns about being too heavyhanded and stifling innovation. How would you suggest policymakers strike that balance . Miranda anywhere that the details are being talked about, multistakeholder conversation is really important. I will talk about nist as an example. They announce this consortium, a variety of organizations and Civil Societies in academia, coming together to talk some of these issues. Cdt is a member of the consortium, which im really glad about. There is a handful of other Civil Society organizations that are part of it. But remember the amount of staff and time and resources that different components of that Multistakeholder Group have to spend on that process, it will have a natural effect. It means that policymakers need to make more of an effort to include voices of communities who wouldnt otherwise be in the room, because otherwise it is easier for them to be drowned out due to the amount of resources that folks have to spend. At the same time people Building Technology who are close to have interesting insights that are important to consider. We want to make sure that policies are tackling the problems that they want to tackle. Sometimes there can be a mismatch when the technology is moving quickly. I think that has to happen out in the open. The insightful runs on the hill, for instance insight forums on theyll come for instance, they did include a lot of folks but they werent as open as they could have been. Making sure that the voices of individuals consistently not considered are held up to the same are weighed in the same breath as the more macro issues that policymakers are considering. Evangelos industry is not a monolith. We are, as i mentioned earlier, an enterprise Software Company, which means that we have very large customers who are not going to use ai tools they dont trust, full stop. That has created a very important market pressure amongst us and others that are taking steps to institute safeguards on the Ai Development side so that we can set up our customers to succeed and comply with either existing law or laws that are coming online so that that trust gap is addressed. Large organizations are not going to adopt ai at scale if they dont trust it. As i mentioned, adopting the nist framework, we were the First Company for nist to put a case study out on our reduction of the nist framework. Using Impact Assessments, having an Ai Governance program, enabling testing of data tools for algorithmic discrimination. These steps are out there. Why do i bring this up in the context of what policymakers can do . They can find ways to codify this and help take advantage of these paths that have already been laid out by many of the leading companies because no one is going to adopt ai if they dont trust it. This is not a call for self regulation. I dont think that is going to work in this case. But if you can find workable regulation that puts in place safeguards and also follows moves the ball forward and follows what can enable innovation. And making sure we are reaching out to as diverse a group of the community to get as many stakeholders in the room and talking to us as possible, particular people who are directly affected by the technology. Its an evergreen challenge and mandate we take very seriously. Adam just bring those themes together, all roads lead back to some agile, iterative, multistakeholder approach to governance to keep pace with the evolution of this technology. And that has really important ramifications for our broader economy and our geopolitical security as we square up against china and other nations on this front. Right now because we have policies 18 of the 25 largest by market capitalization Technology Companies in the world are americanbased. Around 50 are the biggest employers in the world in technology are u. S. Based. That is a result of us getting a more iterative approach to ecommerce and the exact opposite approach of what the europeans have done. I always challenge my students, to name leading Technology Company based in europe. There are some, but it is hard. That is result of bad policy. We dont want to take that approach to ai that the europeans are taking. We need a different u. S. Approach that is more flexible and, yes, quite messy. The think people dont like about multistakeholderism, it is messy. They want an overarching, upfront, precautionary solution. But that is not the right solution if you care about National Competitiveness and geosecurity. Oma i want to thank you all for joining us for this panel and thank you to our panelists. [applause] will quickly, quick announcement. Any early career professionals looking to have a graduate degree in tech policy, American University is in the east gallery and you can talk to them about their tech policy program. Those programs do not exist when adam and i started this conference. We have a gift basket for adam for his 20 years of service. [applause] lunch is served. Back here at 1 20 for the commissioner. Eat lunch and come right back. Last week ceos from pharmaceutical companies johnson johnson, merck, and Bristolmyers Squibb testified on the cost of prescription drugs watch the senate health, education, labor, and Pensions Committee tonight, on cspan cspan now, our free mobile video app, or online at cspan. Org. 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