4 ms·

Do We Need a New Digital Regulatory Agency in the U.S.?

2 points by shagie 4y ago

shagie 4y ago
Applying Betteridge's law of headlines gives us the subtitle of the article: No. We need greater tech literacy in the agencies we already have.
bediger4000 4y ago
I think we do. It's pretty clear by now that automated speech is qualitatively different than traditional free press speech. Memes can cause stock market fluctuations! This sort of speech used to be limited to educated and vetted people like news anchors and nationally prominent CEOs and politicians. Now, anybody can cause a book burning. The same is true of cancel culture. Once it gets in the wrong hands, there's a problem.
- shagie 4y ago
  The question would then be how to get expert level domain knowledge in the "FDA for algorithms" department for all of those different regulatory agencies? The memes that cause stock fluctuations part is "would you need to have SEC level domain knowledge in the Digital Regulatory Agency or would it be better to have tech literacy as part of the SEC?" I believe that having tech literacy in all of the different regulatory bodies rather than having overlapping jurisdictions ("is this tech related stock trading? or not?") would complicate issues too much. The existing agencies already exist and have the regulations that need to be applied. What they also need is the literacy to understand what a tik-tok is. The NTSB needs to have technology experts rather than having a Digital Regulatory Agency having co-jurisidction over self driving cars on the highway ("was the person asleep at the wheel with FSD going? Digital Regularity Agency handles that, but if FSD wasn't engaged and the person just passed out then it would be the NTSB"). As https://www.wsj.com/articles/every-company-is-now-a-tech-company-1543901207?st=8gezmcvyieim5oi&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink https://www.wsj.com/articles/every-company-is-now-a-tech-com... and https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2017/01/23/why-every-company-is-a-technology-company/?sh=3d33188957ae https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2017/01/23/wh... and similar are things that we see and tend to agree with - a similar approach is needed in government agencies.

2 points by shagie 4y ago

Applying Betteridge's law of headlines gives us the subtitle of the article: No. We need greater tech literacy in the agencies we already have.

bediger4000 4y ago

I think we do. It's pretty clear by now that automated speech is qualitatively different than traditional free press speech. Memes can cause stock market fluctuations! This sort of speech used to be limited to educated and vetted people like news anchors and nationally prominent CEOs and politicians. Now, anybody can cause a book burning. The same is true of cancel culture. Once it gets in the wrong hands, there's a problem.

shagie 4y ago
The question would then be how to get expert level domain knowledge in the "FDA for algorithms" department for all of those different regulatory agencies? The memes that cause stock fluctuations part is "would you need to have SEC level domain knowledge in the Digital Regulatory Agency or would it be better to have tech literacy as part of the SEC?" I believe that having tech literacy in all of the different regulatory bodies rather than having overlapping jurisdictions ("is this tech related stock trading? or not?") would complicate issues too much. The existing agencies already exist and have the regulations that need to be applied. What they also need is the literacy to understand what a tik-tok is. The NTSB needs to have technology experts rather than having a Digital Regulatory Agency having co-jurisidction over self driving cars on the highway ("was the person asleep at the wheel with FSD going? Digital Regularity Agency handles that, but if FSD wasn't engaged and the person just passed out then it would be the NTSB"). As https://www.wsj.com/articles/every-company-is-now-a-tech-company-1543901207?st=8gezmcvyieim5oi&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink https://www.wsj.com/articles/every-company-is-now-a-tech-com... and https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2017/01/23/why-every-company-is-a-technology-company/?sh=3d33188957ae https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2017/01/23/wh... and similar are things that we see and tend to agree with - a similar approach is needed in government agencies.