Over the last few years, tremendous attention has been focused on the need to address the challenges and harms created by the technology sector. The Biden administration has outlined plans for a blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights, information integrity research, and new cybersecurity rules for critical infrastructure and called for new bipartisan legislation around privacy, algorithms, and tech antitrust. While there is a clear need for strong federal privacy legislation and new competition policies, even if Congress were to enact those laws tomorrow, significant gaps would remain in addressing the challenges and harms from existing and emerging technologies.
The past few years have seen increasing recognition of the need for a strong sector-specific regulator for the digital space to address not only competition and privacy, but also a wide range of novel consumer protection issues including emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence, addiction by design, algorithmic discrimination, and even concerns about the health of democracy. Researchers and policymakers have begun to outline new approaches to address these gaps centering on the need for policy innovation, new regulatory authorities, and even new agencies to provide the needed guardrails, expertise, and enforcement capability. Across the Atlantic, the European Union is now putting its sweeping Digital Markets Act and Digital Services Act into effect and is soon to finalize its AI act.
Please join the Center for American Progress and Public Knowledge for an event on the next wave of technology regulation ideas with leading scholars on the topic.
A light lunch will be provided.
Remarks:
Dr. Alondra Nelson, former Acting Director, White House Office of Science and Technology Policy; Harold F. Linder Professor, Institute for Advanced Study
Moderator:
Adam Conner, Vice President for Technology Policy, Center for American Progress; Co-Author, “How to Regulate Tech: A Technology Policy Framework for Online Services”
Panel Discussion:
Tom Wheeler, former Chairman, Federal Communications Commission; Visiting Fellow in Governance Studies, Center for Technology Innovation at the Brookings Institution; Author, “New Digital Realities; New Oversight Solutions in the U.S.”
Anna Lenhart, Policy Fellow, Institute for Data, Democracy & Politics’ (IDDP), The George Washington University
Harold Feld, Senior Vice President, Public Knowledge; Author, “The Case for the Digital Platform Act: Breakups, Starfish Problems, and Tech Regulation”
Closing remarks:
Chris Lewis, President and CEO, Public Knowledge