Amy is also an accomplished author. Her most recent book, the signals are talking, teaches us how to think like a futurist and had a distinguished the real trends from the merely United States. It was selectedm as one of Fast Companies best books. A brave soul, anyones chronicled her dentures in Online Dating on david, a love story. As only someone with aon degreen game theory might do she created an algorithm for love. Which letter to the love of her life. For those of you who are single you can check out the ted talk on this which got x million views. Amy will be joined by rob pegoraro, tech policy journalist for yahoo news. Please welcome robin and the woman who was named by forbes as one of the women changing the world through technology, amy webb. [a [applause] good morning. So time for some game theory . I want to start, i know your question but but i want to levt because b i heard botnet a lot this l morning. As though this is a new phenomenon. So id like to take you way back to 2011 whensa we saw the first emergence of botnets throughout current modern social media. In 2014 there was somebody experimenting with t something called the random darknet shopper. How many people in this room have heard about the random darknet shopper . So this is a problem. In the year 2014 botnet was deployed and it wasnt until 2015 at authorities realize that the darknet shopper had bought Ecstasy Pills and fake hungarian passport. The problem was that there was no case law. There was n no policy, no thinkg around what do we do. To me this is problematic for two reasons. First, i spoke with several different government agencies, including state, about the random darknet shopper, and that it illuminated two very important things. First, there is such a thing as a botnet that we all ought to be paying attentionon to. And second, we dont have any thinkingon around. Net because ia botnet can i be deployed to purchase stuff illegally, thats hard. Spreading misinformation is actually pretty easy. We are not at the fouryear anniversary ofre this botnet, ad to my knowledge there is no case law, no policy, no thinking about the future of botnets. And its that i keep hearing plans to fight something thats already happened. This is incredibly important because that technology compared to whats already on the horizon is like childs play. Where entering in an entirely new era of computing, Artificial Intelligence. This is not code based. Its not a tech trend. It is the third era of computing, and the United States not only doesnt have any realistic depoliticize policy or thinking around ai in any cohesive way, but we are not pouring the money into the field the way that others are around the world. The problem is that at some point everybody, somebody is going to decide that this is a problem because some of the country has done something we dont like, and yet again it was lined up being politicized it would happen office of Technology Assessment anymore, even though other countries doan around the world. So what windsat up happening ise have people who are constantly recognizing far too late that a Technology May be committed in a way that we dont like. We dont havee any kind of unitd fought between business and policy. We dont have the funding behind it and then enters into the court of Public Opinion where everybody is woefully misinformed. We are not, you, i dont know any of you but youre not anticipating whats coming next. Thats going to come back and bite us all in the ass in a way that will become increasingly more uncomfortable. I will disclose this by saying i get to meet a public official who is high ranking who can explain to me what a botnet is. I meet with them all the time. Botnets are easy. You can explain what a botnet is. I havent yet met a person who can explain to me why artificial, what Artificial Intelligence is, what it is not and why its important. And so we can talk about 5g and Everything Else that like youre just starting this conference today, and it reallyu concernse that everybody is fired up about a technology that is now four years old in terms of wreaking havoc around the internet in ways that seems to be surprising people. So the gauntlet has been nextn down for the speaker. You better have some good talking points about botnets. But it explains why Net Neutrality came this crazy juggernaut. Explain to everybody is fixated on the future of jobs with regards to an eye when thats the right conversation to be having. It explains why 5g seems to be now may be part of our national infrastructure. Nobody knows. We are definitely tacking on that. So lets talk about, i look at this conference, this agenda now compared to two years ago. Twoal years ago people talk abot social media as its the new public s square, people of likeminded interest can find one another. Now the discussion is, you ruined everything, history will not be kind to you. What with the trends we missed that we maybe, maybe you saw them, i know i did not see them. In my world, the Technology Trend is not United States. They are all datadriven. And the reason that i think we keep missing things is because america has become a nation of nowists. I should mention im political independent, but our Current Administration is obviously backwards thinking and antagonistic towards technology and science. The problem is that were already eight to the playing field. Went very far behind china in some key areas of development. We are behind, and thats a problem. We are behind rush in some areas of Key Technological Development and not only, we have three more years of not getting ourselves caught up. This is a critical time. The next ten years are a big period of transition this is the beginning of the end of smart phones. This is the beginning of the end of computational technologies come so sort of the standard types of computers we are all to. While we are busy looking backwards and fighting yesterdays, and squabbling over yesterdays news, everybody else is moving forward. Not only are they moving forward in some key areas of technology but there are new alliances being built. The fact that china could emerge as a Global Leader, you know, in environmental technologies, i think is fascinating. That they could stand to progress on that from some of the skies ive seen. Sure. You mentioned 5g. Lets give it to that since its out there. Yesterday, axios had the report that the Trump Administration is really thinking of nationalizing the 5g networks that are now starting to get built up by the four major wireless carriers. It said it was a matter of national security, unclear how far along this got when it was the last intern to get access to the whiteboard wrote this out. [laughing] all of those things are plausible. Did you see this coming . So 5g, yes, and that something we have working with lots of different groups on for a while. Here is what i find problematic. It is yet another leaked thing. My last thing that we need at this point is yet another leaked thing with very little, you know, actual data but beyond whatever got released her what that leads to is wild speculation and to people not mapping scenarios in a datadriven way but instead reacting. We can all react because we all have opinions, reacting to what was in that memo. Heres the reality. Regardless of what the administrations policy is, as we move into, as we move into a world of connected things, the challenge is that a lot of those connected things need more bandwidth. They need to connect to each other and the need to do that in a secured way. That doesnt just include samsung new suite of refrigerators and connected kitchens. At some point alsos means all of the vehicles were driving, but also includes things like, the are interesting new biotechnology on the horizon and lots of other things. So one the one hand wanting to ensure the security of that system in someone makes a lot of sense. On the other hand, where has the government been for theen last o years . Then whole infrastructure got built by commercial entities. And to be fair the commercial entities should have come years ago, anybody could a scene years ago, we all bid, that broadband was coming and digital video was coming and the Business Model wasnt going to work. But they built the network. Dont they still have some say in monetizing that investment . You could also argue that the transition to 5g has been slow in the United States that it has been elsewhere. But all off these conversations that are not really doing is a lot ofse good. Because at this point everybody has got sorted heated emotions. Better to have had these conversations ten years ago. Before we had to make decisions under duress. So knows what the document is . It will get leak in a week, say that. So Artificial Intelligence, its this special sauce you can put in any product to make it sound tmore attractive. Sure, toothbrushes. I saw an artificial intelligent toothbrush. I might have as well. Yes, two years ago. Probably, why not. What other policy publications were not thinking about in terms of, two years ago if you look at social networks you wouldve thought we should make sure people can take other peoples accounts. It wasnt so much discussion people will create fake account just to confuse the real people. Then we thoughtsc we should sole harassment but still how about changing peoples minds not by being mean to them. Sure. Theres a lot to unpack. Heres what i would say about ai. It is not a singular thing. It is a different way of computing, and one of the challenges that we have in general is that the bulk of the research in ai has been handled by nine companies. Not by research institutions. They do have partnerships with academic researchers but all of the advancement is essentially in the United States being driven by corporate interests. And im a capitalist. I believe people should be able to make money. However, at some point due to the commercial interests necessarily but up against our National Interest and, quite frankly, the interest of the future community, so in the United States those companies are microsoft, facebook, ibm, google alphabet, and im skipping one. Apple . . Ish. And the other, so the other big companies, and ibm if i didnt say it. So the other three, and arguably the most wellcapitalized and certainly those special to most i. T. Globally are in china. Whats interesting here is that the Chinese Government has made big proclamations about the next 20 years and how it plans to be a Global Leader in ai. But whats important to know, because it made industrial policy before and china doesnt always follow through in a way that measures up to the proclamations. Whats different this time is that china is not going it alone. There are researchers based in the United States. They are pouring money into u. S. Firms, but unlike a traditional hedge that are not just expecting a 10x return bigger expecting leading i. T. Theres a lot of work that is being done here that is going directly back to the Chinese Government. There was no way for me to build a scenario out for the next 20 years at the moment that has an optimistic framing. China, you have probably heard that data is in the next oil. The reason for that is because it is our data that his mind and refined and productized that makes this system work. If thats the case, and i should have mentioned, sorry, amazon, that shouldve been the first thing out of my mouth. If thats the case in the United States, jeff bezos is our new john rockefeller. But not nearly as powerful as what we are seeing him out of china. The United States lacks, so ai is the next era of computing from which there are many spokes, which includes things like biotechnologies. Those two things go together. Automation in our transportation technologies, all of these different areas, and we dont have a National Biology policy. If you think of biology as one of the most important platforms, Technology Platforms of the 21st century, we dont have a National Biology platform strategy. We dont have National Ai Platform strategy that i know and that includes, i cant talk know of. That i i am not seeing a lot of the same enthusiasm. Instead, what i am seeing as a lot of avoiding the subject, we are waiting, we are throwing money into yesterdays technologies which is inferior rating because it doesnt have to be that way. And i have a sevenyearold who i dont want to wake up 30 years now and realize that she is no longer living in a global superpower. We can do something about it now but you cant keep building counter Narrative Strategies for botnets that is what else, that such an old, its great that we are sort of tried to catch up at this point, but i dont want, america cant be the catchup country Going Forward. I would hope that you would feel the same. So the other trend around ai that icing is here the approaches what companies innovate, we will see what happens. The european union, the general Data Protection regulation has a general right to explanation if some algorithm makes a decision that affects you, you can say where did this come from . Right. They havent thought that too either to be fair. Its not the first time the eu overstepped a little bit. It wouldnt. But the problem is one of the things were all going to be how to do Going Forward is to write policy in a way that makes sense given the technology that that policy and that regulation is intended to govern. Because at the Moment Technology is advancing our faster than anybodys ability to write policy for it or to legislate it. So given that thats the scenario, one would have to wonder how is that even going to get enforced . You are worried about fake news now. We are entering an era of splinter net, a splintered internet. Depending on where you are in the world, the internet absolutely has geopolitical borders and tax borders, and as of may some incredibly stringent regulatory borders. What passes for content thats legal in germany may not also be legal in italy, and may be different in canada versus mexico. How are you possibly going to enforce that . We have to think very critically and carefully about how we are creating policy Going Forward, given that the people creating the technologies that you are trying to write policy for, you dont want to stifle innovation ntand development, but on the other hand, you cant regulate it three years after the fact. You have to anticipate, which is why again its dangerous we dont have an ota or an equivalent. People can argue there are different pockets around d. C. That serve some of that same function but we do not have hundreds upon hundreds of trained scientists and technologists and mathematicians, actual futurists who are nonpartisan whose job it is to educate the people who are writing policy and voting. We dont have it anymore. And to refresh the number of some of the younger folks here, the office of technology and assessment was shut down and ninetysix by gingrich. He decided it. How much money did we save on that . So much. It was probably a seat on air force carrier. Air force one, those are not cheap. The sick thing is the ota in the United States became the template for lots of other countries around the world, and it still exists elsewhere. So we dont have the equipment of that now, which is why we keep having these partisan conversation about technology. Y. We probably should have some kind of cdc for digital public health. So we do have Something Like that. Its called the uscert. And im on the site but my dad isnt. My dad is a very, very smart person to he got a house full of technology and implies no more updates. Great, now my dad is going to get hacked because some is watching cspan. Please dont hack my dad. If we start, if we refrain the conversation of the technology that we use, and we soon, we agree Digital Literacy is important, then isnt it time with Something Like a cdc whose job it is in a very effective way, in a measured way, educate the everyday person about the benefits and dangers, you know, of using Digital Tools and infrastructure and online media, but in a way thats relatable. In the last election the discussion of cybersecurity was not great. What are the signs you are going to be looking for to see that were getting at least some of more intelligent and we cannot have a debate on cybersecurity that features the phrase the 40 . So again heres how far out of touch those are very user that hackers are still people. They are not. On the more advanced side of this space, people have now written programs to do this automatically. So the 400pound, like slob tackle your pitching as the cause of election problems, like thats not what, thats not what were talking about. Miniaturizing it into a fourpound laptop. And smaller than that. And when you think of hacking, like youre probably probably still thinking about y computer. Within our lifetimes, and probably sometime in the next 15 years, were going to have new types of technology that we ingest, that we wear for a variety of different informational and medica purposes, right . I dont think that anybody has a clue ask to whats coming. I dont think the people in washington, d. C. Have thought this through. There are very smart people here whose voices would be great to hear in a way that