Week of January 30, 2023
The trials of DC’s annual exercise in self-flagellation, Dry January, mercifully come to an end this week as we can look forward to a much more enjoyable February tradition: watching Bill Murray’s cinematic masterpiece. Bonus points to the shortest month of the year, as pitchers and catchers report to Spring Training, meaning the start of baseball season is right around the corner.
The gears of our representative government are moving slowly, but there will be positive movement on Capitol Hill this week as House (and likely Senate) committees are set to be formally constituted. This practice takes place every two years, at the start of a new Congress, and it involves a meeting of each full committee where the Members ratify the rules that will govern their committee. Following this process, the committees can begin their regular business - holding hearings, conducting investigations, and considering legislation within their jurisdiction.
The kids call it “cringe worthy” and, for once, they may be onto something. Last week’s Senate Judiciary Committee on anticompetitive behavior by the ticketing industry featured an unfortunately high volume of remarks from U.S. Senators that chose to incorporate lyrics from Taylor Swift songs. You can check out a recap here.
What We’re Watching:
Washington Focuses on AI: Last week saw a flurry of activity on new federal AI guidance, roadmaps, and the first piece of federal legislation crafted by generative AI technology. The increasing fervor around AI sets the tone for lawmakers and regulators as they look towards the capacity of advanced technologies.
Following its press event on Thursday, NIST released its highly-anticipated AI Risk Management Framework, which provides voluntary guidance for designing, developing, deploying and using AI systems to promote the responsible use of AI. The RMF takes into account socio-technical factors to best mitigate risks of AI technology throughout the full AI lifecycle.
The National AI Research Resource Task Force (NAIRRTF) released its final report on January 24 titled, “Strengthening and Democratizing the U.S. Artificial Intelligence Innovation Ecosystem: An Implementation Plan for a National Artificial Intelligence Research Resource.” The final report builds on the findings and recommendations outlined in the Task Force's interim report released in May 2022, providing an implementation plan to achieve the objective of strengthening and democratizing the U.S. AI innovation ecosystem to best protect privacy and civil liberties.
Legislators also participated in the AI discussion last week, with Rep. Ted Lieu (D-CA) introducing the first ever federal legislation written by artificial intelligence. Using the artificial language model ChatGPT, Congressman Lieu directed the generative AI to produce a congressional resolution urging Congress to focus on AI to call attention to emerging technologies.
DOJ Sues Google Over Antitrust Violations: The Department of Justice and several state Attorney’s Generals filed their high-profile lawsuit against Google on January 24, alleging that Google routinely and historically engaged in monopolistic practices in the ad-tech industry. The lawsuit cites that Google's advertising practices have created an anticompetitive environment for web publishers and other advertising companies that try to compete with different products, and specifically calls out conduct including acquisition of competitors, forced adoption of Google’s tools, distortion of auction competition, and auction manipulation. The DOJ is asking to break up the company, unwinding Google’s acquisitions and divestiture of its ad exchange. The DOJ’s Antitrust Division Assistant Attorney General Jonathan Kanter remarked that the “lawsuit seeks to hold Google to account for its longstanding monopolies in digital advertising technologies that content creators use to sell ads and advertisers use to buy ads on the open internet.”
Pushback on TikTok Continues: TikTok continues to be met with resistance with Senator Josh Hawley (R-MO) and Representative Ken Buck (R-CO) introducing new legislation to ban the use of TikTok in the United States, citing national security concerns from TikTok’s Chinese-owned parent company, ByteDance. Separately, House Energy & Commerce Committee Chairwoman, Cathy McMorris-Rodgers (R-WA), announced that TikTok’s CEO, Shou Zi Chew, will testify before the Committee in March. The bipartisan support to act on national security concerns of TikTok is growing, and is another example that being a hardliner on China is the most bi-partisan position in Washington, DC.
What’s Happening This Week:
Tech Hearings
House Judiciary hearing on the border crisis - Wednesday, February 1 at 10:00 AM ET
Tech Events
The Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft - "Blinken's Trip to Beijing: U.S.-China Relations at a Crossroads" - Monday, January 30 at 12:00 PM ET
The Institute of World Politics - "Lessons Learned From the Russo-Ukraine War and How They Can be Applied to a U.S. China Conflict" - Monday, January 30 at 5:00 PM ET
The Information Technology and Innovation Foundation - "The State of U.S. Broadband in 2022: Reassessing the Whole Picture" - Tuesday, January 31 at 12:00 PM ET
MUSA International - “Data Privacy Day 2023: The State of Unauthorized Scraping and Its Impact on Users and Industry” - Tuesday, January 31 at 2:00 PM ET
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce - “Digital Transformation Summit” - Thursday, February 2 at 10:00 AM ET
The German Marshall Fund of the United States - The Foreign Policy of Technology" - Thursday, February 2 at 10:30 AM ET
The Government Executive Media Group - "Intelligence and Insider Threats: Exploring and Mitigating Risk" - Thursday, February 2 at 1:00 PM ET
What’s Interesting This Week:
Breaking the Atmospheric Ceiling! On February 3, 1995, astronaut Eileen Collins became the first woman to pilot the Space Shuttle as mission STS-63 got underway from Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
