Beware impact of overregulation of tech
Election season is in full swing and America’s technology leadership is on the ballot in more ways than one.
As a cybersecurity expert and owner of Bambenek Consulting, I’m keenly aware of recent advancements in artificial intelligence (AI) and the promise it holds for small businesses, nonprofits and NGOs. But to fully harness the power of artificial intelligence, we have to do two things: protect the human capital at its core and safeguard America’s tech leadership.
Both can be accomplished through smart tech policy.
Artificial intelligence is powered by data, but it’s contextualized by humans. Academics, researchers and even business owners like me create and contextualize data that trains AI platforms to perform in predictable ways.
While the data itself is valuable, its context — a product of human capital — is the real treasure. That’s why we’re seeing a proliferation of foreign competitors, including those in China, actively recruiting our brightest minds — data scientists, researchers, scientists and innovators — to create and contextualize data for foreign companies and governments.
Normally this would sound alarms, but it’s an even greater threat given anti-innovation policies circulating in Congress that would undermine domestic innovation and weaken America’s technology leadership. Current policy proposals are poorly defined, leave foreign companies unregulated, position the U.S. for trillions of dollars in economic losses and disincentivize future innovation when we need it most.
Why would we make tech innovation more challenging in the U.S. when we know other countries are welcoming our talent with open arms?
As we’ve seen in manufacturing and health care, overregulation rarely nets a positive outcome. This election cycle, our Illinois policymakers must be champions for America’s technology leadership so that we can harness the potential of AI while protecting our most talented innovators.
John Bambenek
Schaumburg