2021 was a busy year in technology policy, to
say the least. Our team was hard at work, continually assessing how the
institute’s core values of enterprise, human freedom, and innovation fit into
the digital world. Here are our scholars’ closing thoughts on the past year,
along with predictions about what next year might hold.
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John Bailey
In 2021, COVID-19 disruptions continued to accelerate the implementation of artificial intelligence and automation technologies for corporations and new digital delivery of government services. Federal stimulus programs provided more than $75 billion in funding to address the digital divide, most of which will be spent in 2022 and beyond. I think we’ll see Congress advance legislation next year providing additional funding and regulatory flexibility for telehealth, particularly as a way of scaling mental health services to adolescents and young adults. I am also optimistic that the United States Innovation and Competition Act could pass out of conference next year. It passed the Senate with strong bipartisan support, and there is growing support to bolster the nation’s research & development infrastructure.
Claude Barfield
On 5G, the coming year will give us a better
understanding of whether, or at what pace, Open Radio Access Networks will
succeed in replacing existing internet technology systems. Second, on
semiconductor factories (or “fabs”), despite extensive discussions, I predict
the US and EU will proceed on separate paths. Third, the US and China will
likely continue down the road of (erratic) “strategic decoupling.”
Jeffrey Eisenach
2021 was, unhappily, the year in which tech
policy analysis was silent (or silenced) on the most important issue of the day
— COVID-19. Empirical analysis was
shunned in favor of the rule of a “scientific” elite whose diktats were as
demonstrably wrongheaded as its analysis and predictions were repeatedly proven
wrong. Let 2022 be a year of progress and freedom: progress in the field of
evidence-based analysis and freedom in the open expression of same.
Jim Harper
Privacy had a sleepy 2021 relative to
expectations. It has become a bit ritualistic to expect omnibus federal privacy
legislation at the beginning of any new administration or Congress. That may be
as it should, as the “privacy” issue lumps together a panoply of different
human values and interests that aren’t amenable to a legislative “fix.” Federal
legislation could relieve some enervating effects of regulations out of Europe
and California, but my bet is against anything happening in 2022.
Cryptocurrency had another banner year, with
its lodestar, bitcoin (BTC), reaching another all-time high against the dollar
and the total value of the ecosystem reaching $3 trillion in “market cap.” It
will be a while before the idea of dollar-based market capitalization loses
meaning because everything is priced in BTC, but those are the pretensions of
some in this techno-econo-social juggernaut. I think the coming year will be
like the last. Regulatory actions and occasional congressional hearings will
continue roughly and imperfectly making sense of increasingly relevant
blockchain-based systems.
Bronwyn Howell
2021 was a year in which Australia and New
Zealand went in different directions from the US. Australia continued its legal
pursuit of online content providers, with court judgements and proposed laws
seeking to make the online publishers of offensive content liable for it, even
if they did not contribute themselves. New Zealand persisted with the mandatory
use of its QR code-based COVID-19 contact tracing app, even though active users
are recording fewer than three codes per day and locations of interest recorded
on it are no longer being broadcast in Auckland — the epicenter of the current outbreak.
Developments regarding both in 2022 will be of great interest to US
policymakers.
Mark Jamison
The past year has seen a number of antitrust
initiatives against Big Tech firms. From new regulations in Europe, to new
legislation in Congress and in state legislatures across the US, to advocates
for breaking up Big Tech being appointed to positions in the White House and
Federal Trade Commission, government officials are pressing for greater control
of and greater fines on US tech leaders. As best I can tell, these advocates
are set in their conclusions, so I expect them to be even more active in 2022.
Daniel Lyons
The
Section 230 debate that dominated tech policy discourse in 2021 is showing no
signs of slowing down, though the bipartisan push to regulate Big Tech may
falter as Congress turns its attention to specific bills that are unlikely to
please critics on both ends of the political spectrum. Meanwhile, the
confirmation of a fifth commissioner at the Federal Communications Commission will
reignite the debate about regulating broadband. This presents opportunities to
highlight how a light-touch regulatory model allowed broadband providers to
support Americans through an unprecedented pandemic and to examine market-based
solutions to ongoing problems with access and affordability.
Michael Rosen
The past year in intellectual property
policy included a vigorous debate over proposals to waive patent protections
for COVID-19 vaccines at the World Trade Organization, a debate that’s likely
to intensify during the coming year. Over on Capitol Hill, legislative efforts
at patent reform (including to the eligibility regime) appear to be regaining
some momentum. Looking ahead to 2022, we can expect Congress to begin marking
up these proposals and for the US Patent and Trademark Office to weigh in under
the leadership of a new director.
Bret Swanson
In 2021, social media robbed us of one of the
internet’s greatest gifts — heterogeneous ideas which can make the world
healthier, wealthier, and wiser. Censorship, for example, blocked access to
eminent physicians and scientific studies showing (1) alternative strategies
could replace the devastating mass lockdowns and (2) several cheap, abundant,
long-approved generic drugs were remarkably effective against COVID-19. When we
reduce the range of acceptable discourse, we concentrate risk and create
catastrophic bubbles of groupthink — or worse. In the case of COVID-19, the
result was millions of people damaged and potentially hundreds of thousands of
lives needlessly lost. Policies to reinvigorate the promise of internet
diversity can help. The real action, however, will come with the already
underway entrepreneurial explosion of crypto, blockchain, and Web3.
Shane Tews
We are seeing blockchain, digital payment
platforms, and artificial intelligence become mainstream drivers of the digital
economy in the way that voice, data, and cloud have been driving the growth of
mobile technology. We need to ensure our government officials see the
importance of these changes and craft smart policies that enable growth, not
stifle technology in the name of “competition.”
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