A funny thing has happened in the year-plus since this newsletter launched: A good deal of the “future” technology and policy we’ve set out to cover has made its way into the present. At POLITICO’s Global Tech Day, held today in London, a global group of policymakers and thinkers gathered to hash out how governments might respond to dizzying developments in AI, digital payments, and competition with China. Some of the day’s highlights, issue by issue: Artificial intelligence: Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) kicked off the day with some incendiary comments around Congress’ ability to meaningfully regulate AI, saying with Texan tact that the body“doesn’t know what the hell it’s doing” on the topic. “This is an institution [where] I think the median age in the Senate is about 142. This is not a tech savvy group,” Cruz said, before criticizing the European Union’s sweeping approach to AI regulation through the forthcoming AI Act. By his lights, however, U.S. lawmakers’ cluelessness might not be a bad thing: He compared America’s hands-off approach favorably to Europe’s sticky fingers, saying the latter was “far less concerned with creating an environment where innovation can flourish.” Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.) chimed in from the other side of the aisle on the recently proposed push from Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer to legislate around AI, saying that from his perspective as chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, it’s a national security issue as well as a tech one. “Many of us believe that we are in an enormous technology competition, particularly with China, and that national security means winning the battle around AI,” Warner said. A group of European regulators were, of course, on hand to (implicitly) defend and discuss their approach — particularly when it comes to generative AI, the popular rise of which occurred late into the writing of the AI Act. Regulators from the U.K., Italy, and Romania discussed the very practical, real-world regulatory problems AI poses already, especially around data and privacy. “Privacy is one [AI concern]... but also beyond privacy, there are issues of bias and discrimination” around generative AI, said the European Commission’s Lucilla Sioli, by way of touting the AI Act’s “risk-based” regulatory approach. That structure places tighter restrictions on AI use depending on the sensitivity or potential for harm in certain tasks it might be used for. That’s the stuff we know. The assembled regulators also addressed the inherently unknowable parts of AI risk, with Stephen Almond of the U.K.’s Information Commissioner’s Office saying the country already sees a potentially existential AI risk as part and parcel of their overall policy approach. Almond said he doesn’t think of that risk as separate from today’s policy issues, but that “the bigger risk is a progression in the growth of technology… by solving the immediate, here-and-now risk we get better and better, and we can put in place the institutions that we need.” Digital payments: John Cunliffe, a deputy governor of the Bank of England, spoke with POLITICO’s Izabella Kaminska about the U.K.’s investigation of a potential “digital pound,” a central bank digital currency similar to one the U.S. is exploring. (And yes, China has already embraced its own.) Cunliffe said the case for a British CBDC is that it would “ensure confidence in money, and the uniformity of money” in a sometimes-bewildering digital marketplace. “People won’t have to think, ‘Am I using a stablecoin? Am I using an HSBC deposit? What form of money is this, what is it worth?’” He warned that “retrofitting legislation on them, once they become established, is hugely difficult,” and that the U.K.’s proactiveness is an attempt to “deal with likely futures before we're surprised, and suddenly we're running after the trying to catch up.” (DFD’s Ben Schreckinger reported Monday on how Europe sees an opportunity to potentially surpass the U.S. on the new technology, given pushback from conservatives in Washington and Silicon Valley.) Global competition: Let’s be real — one of the main reasons we’re here, both reading (and writing) this newsletter and listening to the machers in London today, is because it really matters who gets to write the rules for these powerful new technologies. That self-awareness was markedly on display today, especially as POLITICO’s Mark Scott and Brendan Bordelon reported on the growing unease in Europe and among some Asian countries with the U.S.’ efforts to box out China on tech. Officials from Singapore, the European Commission, and Malaysia all insisted that they would continue to engage with China. “Malaysia is a neutral country, we do adhere to a free market policy,” said Fahmi Fadzil, Malaysia’s communications and digital minister. And it’s not just China that scrambles the calculus when it comes to how governments deal with these slippery, border-crossing digital technologies. Julie Brill, Microsoft’s chief privacy officer, sat down with POLITICO CEO Goli Sheikholeslami to argue for more transatlantic collaboration on tech. “We need to see regulators move forward starting to demand transparency” and “make companies live up to what they’re supposed to be doing.”
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