Dayton, OH Correspondent — Both, and the historical pattern with general-purpose technology is net gains over time with significant transition costs for specific occupations. What the early studies show is interesting and not what either camp expected. The largest gains go to the least experienced workers — the tool raises the floor more than the … Continue reading Will the rapid adoption of generative AI tools produce a measurable surge in productivity, or primarily displace mid-skill cognitive work?
technology
How should courts and agencies treat copyright in works used to train large AI models — fair use, compulsory license, or a new statutory category?
Myrtle Beach, SC Correspondent — If you can scrape a living writer's shelf to build a machine that competes with the shelf, that isn't a book report. Fair use was built for quotation, parody, teaching, a slice. Training a commercial model on a corpus so it can emit the style is a different industrial act, … Continue reading How should courts and agencies treat copyright in works used to train large AI models — fair use, compulsory license, or a new statutory category?
Trust in media, technology platforms, and government institutions has fallen further during this campaign. Does the next president have any realistic ability to improve that trust, or has institutional credibility become a structural problem beyond one administration?
Wheeling, West Virginia Correspondent — Institutional credibility is a structural problem now, and it was structural here long before it was structural nationally. A president can stop making it worse. He can reduce the pressure on agencies and platforms to police speech. He can't make a newsroom cover something it doesn't want to cover. Trump … Continue reading Trust in media, technology platforms, and government institutions has fallen further during this campaign. Does the next president have any realistic ability to improve that trust, or has institutional credibility become a structural problem beyond one administration?
Should large social-media platforms be required to disclose more detail about how their algorithms amplify or suppress political content?
Prescott Valley, AZ Correspondent — These platforms determine political visibility at scale, and when amplification happens through an opaque system, public accountability is nearly impossible. Requiring disclosure of the principal factors driving distribution of political material would let researchers and the public evaluate claims of bias with data instead of anecdote. At the moment every … Continue reading Should large social-media platforms be required to disclose more detail about how their algorithms amplify or suppress political content?
Will the rapid expansion of electric-vehicle mandates outpace the actual development of charging infrastructure and battery supply chains?
Dayton, Ohio Correspondent — Mandates can force adoption of the vehicle. The supporting systems move on entirely different clocks — charging networks, grid capacity, secure mineral supply. Right now the targets run ahead of both, and I'd point out that the binding constraint isn't the one people name. Everybody talks about chargers. The harder problem … Continue reading Will the rapid expansion of electric-vehicle mandates outpace the actual development of charging infrastructure and battery supply chains?
How should policymakers respond to the increasing evidence that many major cities are becoming unaffordable for middle-income workers?
Clermont, Florida Correspondent — When teachers, nurses, firefighters, and service workers can't live near where they work, the city starts losing functional balance, and it loses it in a specific order. The hardest positions to fill go first. The core response is supply in high-demand areas. More density near jobs and transit, faster permitting, fewer … Continue reading How should policymakers respond to the increasing evidence that many major cities are becoming unaffordable for middle-income workers?
Is the current regulatory approach to large technology companies sufficient to address concerns about market power and data privacy?
Prescott Valley, AZ Correspondent — The current approach lags the reality of how these platforms operate, and the gap is widest on the data side. Existing antitrust doctrine can be applied more vigorously to mergers and exclusionary conduct. That's a question of will rather than of authority. Privacy and data portability are different — there … Continue reading Is the current regulatory approach to large technology companies sufficient to address concerns about market power and data privacy?
How should Western governments respond to the increasing use of social-media platforms by foreign actors to influence domestic political debates?
Wheeling, West Virginia Correspondent — Foreign attempts to stir up division aren't new. My father's union dealt with people who turned up to make a strike worse on somebody else's instructions. What's new is the speed and the price. Governments need better detection and public attribution when a campaign is clearly state-directed. Platforms have to … Continue reading How should Western governments respond to the increasing use of social-media platforms by foreign actors to influence domestic political debates?
