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The major news of last week was the annual World Economic Forum at Davos. Through the course of the event, several global issues were discussed from the more obvious ones such as climate change to new threats like coronavirus. Among the 7 key themes, Tech for Good was the one that got my attention most. Some of the sexy sessions included “How to Implement Responsible AI”, building trust in data flows and global impact of a tech cold war. The last one is the subject of this post as it’s an intriguing topic for a tech policy geek.
The analogy is quite interesting because the “tech” Cold War is happening on a pace that is not comparable to the Cold War itself. Yes there are again megapowers and polarization, yet the deterrent elements have shifted from physical to cyber. As the quote below shows, cyber entered the scene only in the past decade or so, yet it became a driving force in the tech Cold War.
So if you look over a ten-year period, in 2007 the Annual Threat Assessment to Congress, which the Director of National Intelligence gives (…) the word cyber does not appear once. Not once.
So cyber really wasn’t on the radar screen in 2007. If you fast forward five years after that, in 2012 cyber is suddenly at the top of that threat list. Amy B. Zegart, Council on Foreign Relations conference call
From zero talk on cyber to what we face today, with constant fear about foreign interference in national matters (i.e. 2016 U.S. Presidential elections), the velocity of the threat landscape is getting more and more complicated to handle with the tools of 20th century. Policy making is no longer a matter of social sciences, heavily revolved around diplomacy, military superpowers and economic sanctions. It now involves computer science, artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning and cyber knowledge in this new era.
Competition
On one hand there is the competition aspect. AI is clearly changing how we operate. Economic superpowers are again leading the arms race there. “American AI Initiative” is launched last year where the United States joined other major countries pursuing national strategies for developing AI. China released its “New Generation Plan” in 2017, outlining its strategy to lead the world in AI by 2030. And the Russian leader Putin declared that:
Whoever becomes the leader in this sphere will become the ruler of the world. Vladimir Putin
Regulations
Regulating new and emerging technology has been quite a tough issue as there is the competition and the desire to get ahead on one hand, but on the other hand no one knows the potential set backs of new technologies, which might need a harsher stance. Hence, the regulations range from “hands-off approach” to taking a harsher stance on certain topics as an international community (i.e. Elon Musk and AI leaders signing a petition to the UN calling for new regulations on the development of AI weapons). The most recent commentary on this is Google (Alphabet) CEO Sundar Pichai’s call for regulating AI. As Pichai mentioned, the regulation needs to be nuanced, balancing moderating “potential harms” with a space for “social opportunities.”
Yet, how will the policymakers are supposed to regulate areas that are completely foreign to them, and sometimes areas/ issues with no precedence? Take one of the most debated hearings for instance, where Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook was called in to explain how the company operates. Some of the questions became a meme in the internet world, such as the one before, which proves that for policy makers to regulate a new technology, or in this case one that has been around for several years, is extremely complicated as they first need to understand what it does at all. 
If lawmakers want to regulate Facebook, they might need to get on the same page about what problem they’re trying to solve. Vox.com
To ease the pain on regulating new and emerging technologies, U.S. Government Accountability Office – which provides Congress analysis of tech and scientific developments – established the Science, Technology Assessment, and Analytics team at the beginning of 2019. The goal is build lawmakers’ tech-savviness and help them understand the impacts of any tech-centric policies they look after
By acting as a springboard for tech expertise, the office could help prevent Congress from repeating its embarrassing missteps during last year’s high-profile hearings with Facebook cofounder Mark Zuckerberg and Google chief executive Sundar Pichai. Nextgov
From the official website of the U.S. Government Accountability Office
Conclusion
The race on new technologies seems to be the driver of the Tech Cold War. Yet, the Tech Cold War is much more complicated than the original one, given the level of polarization. Even within a nation itself there is a disagreement on how to lead this race, i.e. Silicon Valley – Washington D.C. divide. Given the lack of expertise on scientific & tech issues among the policymakers, regulating new and emerging technologies has become a painful topic. The initiatives to make policymakers more tech-savvy, hence take a more informed stance when it comes to regulating tech developments is a great development, yet quite late. Still, there is hope that with better understanding we will see more nuanced regulations in the next decade.
Tech Policy Geek 