[applause] [inaudible conversations] >> thanks, tim. so i am very happy to be today to introduce amy webb. amy's title time as i understaa quantitative futurist so she totally has the most interesting title of anybody in this room. she founded the future today institute and she teaches at in wide use stern school of business or she studies have technology and science will disrupt business and ignite geopoliticalil change. where she got universities, industry and governments on how to navigate that change. she explores a range of intriguing ideas like what she calls quote fair and equal codebase, , safeguards against e dangers of online buyers.

amy is also an accomplished author. her most recent book, the signals are talking, teaches us how to think like a futurist and had a distinguished the real trends from the merely united states. it was selectedm as one of fast companies best books. a brave soul, anyone's chronicled her dentures in online dating on david, a love story. as only someone with aon degreen game theory might do she created an algorithm for love. which letter to the love of her life. for those of you who are single you can check out the ted talk on this which got x million views. amy will be joined by rob pegoraro, tech policy journalist for yahoo! news. please welcome robin and the woman who was named by forbes as one of the women changing the world through technology, amy webb.[a [applause]

>> good morning. so time for some game theory? >> i want to start, i know your question but but i want to levt because b i heard botnet a lot this l morning. as though this is a new phenomenon. so i'd like to take you way back to 2011 whensa we saw the first emergence of botnets throughout current modern social media. in 2014 there was somebody experimenting with t something called the random darknet shopper. how many people in this room have heard about the random darknet shopper? so this is a problem. in the year 2014 botnet was deployed and it wasn't until 2015 at authorities realize that the darknet shopper had bought ecstasy pills and fake hungarian passport. the problem was that there was no case law. there was n no policy, no thinkg around what do we do.

to me this is problematic for two reasons. first, i spoke with several different government agencies, including state, about the random darknet shopper, and that it illuminated two very important things. first, there is such a thing as a botnet that we all ought to be paying attentionon to. and second, , we don't have any thinkingon around.net because ia botnet can i be deployed to purchase stuff illegally, that's hard. spreading misinformation is actually pretty easy. we are not at the four-year anniversary ofre this botnet, ad to my knowledge there is no case law, no policy, no thinking about the future of botnets. and it's that i keep hearing plans to fight something that's already happened. this is incredibly important because that technology compared to what's already on the horizon is like child's play. where entering in an entirely

new era of computing, artificial intelligence. this is not code based. it's not a tech trend. it is the third era of computing, and the united states not only doesn't have any realistic depoliticize policy or thinking around ai in any cohesive way, but we are not pouring the money into the field the way that others are around the world. the problem is that at some point everybody, somebody is going to decide that this is a problem because some of the country has done something we don't like, and yet again it was lined up being politicized it would happen office of technology assessment anymore, even though other countries doan around the world. so what windsat up happening ise have people who are constantly recognizing far too late that a technology may be committed in a way that we don't like. we don't havee any kind of unitd

fought between business and policy. we don't have the funding behind it and then enters into the court of public opinion where everybody is woefully misinformed. we are not, you, i don't know any of you but you're not anticipating what's coming next. that's going to come back and bite us all in the ass in a way that will become increasingly more uncomfortable. i will disclose this by saying i get to meet a public official who is high ranking who can explain to me what a botnet is. i meet with them all the time. botnets are easy. you can explain what a botnet is. i haven't yet met a person who can explain to me why artificial, what artificial intelligence is, what it is not and why it's important. and so we can talk about 5g and everything else that like you're just starting this conference today, and it reallyu' concernse that everybody is fired up about a technology that is now four years old in terms of wreaking

havoc around the internet in ways that seems to be surprising people. >> so the gauntlet has been nextn down for the speaker. you better have some good talking points about botnets. >> but it explains why net neutrality came this crazy juggernaut. explain to everybody is fixated on the future of jobs with regards to an eye when that's the right conversation to be having. it explains why 5g seems to be now may be part of our national infrastructure. nobody knows. >> we are definitely tacking on that. so let's talk about, i look at this conference, this agenda now compared to two years ago. twoal years ago people talk abot social media as it's the new public s square, people of like-minded interest can find one another. now the discussion is, you ruined everything, history will not be kind to you. what with the trends we missed that we maybe, maybe you saw them, i know i did not see them. >> in my world, the technology

trend is not united states. they are all data-driven. -- and the reason that i think we keep missing things is because america has become a nation of nowists. i should mention i'm political independent, but our current administration is obviously backwards thinking and antagonistic towards technology and science. the problem is that we're already eight to the playing field. went very far behind china in some key areas of development. we are behind, and that's a problem. we are behind rush in some areas of key technological development and not only, we have three more years of not getting ourselves caught up. this is a critical time. the next ten years are a big

period of transition this is the beginning of the end of smart phones. this is the beginning of the end of computational technologies come so sort of the standard types of computers we are all to. while we are busy looking backwards and fighting yesterdays, and squabbling over yesterdays news, everybody else is moving forward. not only are they moving forward in some key areas of technology but there are new alliances being built. the fact that china could emerge as a global leader, you know, in environmental technologies, i think is fascinating. >> that they could stand to progress on that from some of the skies i've seen. >> sure. >> you mentioned 5g. let's give it to that since it's out there. yesterday, axios had the report that the trump administration is really thinking of nationalizing the 5g networks that are now

starting to get built up by the four major wireless carriers. it said it was a matter of national security, unclear how far along this got when it was the last intern to get access to the whiteboard wrote this out. [laughing] >> all of those things are plausible. >> did you see this coming? >> so 5g, yes, and that something we have working with lots of different groups on for a while. here is what i find problematic. it is yet another leaked thing. my last thing that we need at this point is yet another leaked thing with very little, you know, actual data but beyond whatever got released her what that leads to is wild speculation and to people not mapping scenarios in a data-driven way but instead reacting. we can all react because we all have opinions, reacting to what was in that memo. here's the reality. regardless of what the

administration's policy is, as we move into, as we move into a world of connected things, the challenge is that a lot of those connected things need more bandwidth. they need to connect to each other and the need to do that in a secured way. that doesn't just include samsung new suite of refrigerators and connected kitchens. at some point alsos means all of the vehicles were driving, but also includes things like, the are interesting new biotechnology on the horizon and lots of other things. so one the one hand wanting to ensure the security of that system in someone makes a lot of sense. on the other hand, where has the government been for theen last o years? then whole infrastructure got built by commercial entities. and to be fair the commercial entities should have come years ago, anybody could a scene years

ago, we all bid, that broadband was coming and digital video was coming and the business model wasn't going to work. but they built the network. don't they still have some say in monetizing that investment? you could also argue that the transition to 5g has been slow in the united states that it has been elsewhere. but all off these conversations that are not really doing is a lot ofse good. because at this point everybody has got sorted heated emotions. better to have had these conversations ten years ago. before we had to make decisions under duress. so knows what the document is? >> it will get leak in a week, say that. so artificial intelligence, it's this special sauce you can put in any product to make it sound tmore attractive. >> sure, , toothbrushes. i saw an artificial intelligent

toothbrush. >> i might have as well. >> yes, two years ago. >> probably, why not. what other policy publications we're not thinking about in terms of, two years ago if you look at social networks you would've thought we should make sure people can take other peoples accounts. it wasn't so much discussion people will create fake account just to confuse the real people. then we thoughtsc we should sole harassment but still how about changing peoples minds not by being mean to them. >> sure. there's a lot to unpack. here's what i would say about ai. it is not a singular thing. it is a different way of computing, and one of the challenges that we have in general is that the bulk of the research in ai has been handled by nine companies. not by research institutions. they do have partnerships with academic researchers but all of the advancement is essentially in the united states being driven by corporate interests.

and i'm a capitalist. i believe people should be able to make money. however, at some point due to the commercial interests necessarily but up against our national interest and, quite frankly, the interest of the future community, so in the united states those companies are microsoft, facebook, ibm, google/alphabet, and i'm skipping one. >> apple?? >> -ish. and the other, so the other big companies, and ibm if i didn't say it. so the other three, and arguably the most well-capitalized and certainly those special to most i.t. globally are in china. what's interesting here is that the chinese government has made big proclamations about the next 20 years and how it plans to be a global leader in ai. but what's important to know,, because it made industrial

policy before and china doesn't always follow through in a way that measures up to the proclamations. what's different this time is that china is not going it alone. there are researchers based in the united states. they are pouring money into u.s. firms, but unlike a traditional hedge that are not just expecting a 10x return bigger expecting leading i.t. there's a lot of work that is being done here that is going directly back to the chinese government. there was no way for me to build a scenario out for the next 20 years at the moment that has an optimistic framing. china, you have probably heard that data is in the next oil. the reason for that is because it is our data that his mind and refined and productized that makes this system work. if that's the case, and i should

have mentioned, sorry, amazon, that should've been the first thing out of my mouth. if that's the case in the united states, jeff bezos is our new john rockefeller. but not nearly as powerful as what we are seeing him out of china. the united states lacks, so ai is the next era of computing from which there are many spokes, which includes things like biotechnologies. those two things go together. automation in our transportation technologies, all of these different areas, and we don't have a national biology policy. if you think of biology as one of the most important platforms, technology platforms of the 21st century, we don't have a national biology platform strategy. we don't have national ai platform strategy that i know and that includes, i can't talk know of. that i i am not seeing a lot of the same enthusiasm. instead, what i am seeing as a

lot of avoiding the subject, we are waiting, we are throwing money into yesterdays technologies which is inferior rating because it doesn't have to be that way. and i have a seven-year-old who i don't want to wake up 30 years now and realize that she is no longer living in a global superpower. we can do something about it now but you can't keep building counter narrative strategies for botnets that is what else, that such an old, it's great that we are sort of tried to catch up at this point, but i don't want, america can't be the catch-up country going forward. i would hope that you would feel the same. >> so the other trend around ai that icing is here the approaches what companies innovate, we will see what happens. the european union, the general data protection regulation has a general right to explanation if

some algorithm makes a decision that affects you, you can say where did this come from? >> right. they haven't thought that too either to be fair. >> it's not the first time the eu overstepped a little bit. >> it wouldn't. but the problem is one of the things we're all going to be how to do going forward is to write policy in a way that makes sense given the technology that that policy and that regulation is intended to govern. because at the moment technology is advancing our faster than anybody's ability to write policy for it or to legislate it. so given that that's the scenario, one would have to wonder how is that even going to get enforced? you are worried about fake news now. we are entering an era of splinter net, a splintered internet. depending on where you are in the world, the internet absolutely has geopolitical

borders and tax borders, and as of may some incredibly stringent regulatory borders. what passes for content that's legal in germany may not also be legal in italy, and may be different in canada versus mexico. how are you possibly going to enforce that? we have to think very critically and carefully about how we are creating policy going forward, given that the people creating the technologies that you are trying to write policy for, you don't want to stifle innovation ntand development, but on the other hand, you can't regulate it three years after the fact. you have to anticipate, which is why again it's dangerous we don't have an ota or an equivalent. people can argue there are different pockets around d.c. that serve some of that same function but we do not have hundreds upon hundreds of

trained scientists and technologists and mathematicians, actual futurists who are nonpartisan whose job it is to educate the people who are writing policy and voting. we don't have it anymore. >> and to refresh the number of some of the younger folks here, the office of technology and assessment was shut down and -- >> ninety-six by gingrich. he decided it. >> how much money did we save on that? >> so much. it was probably a seat on air force carrier. >> air force one, those are not cheap. >> the sick thing is the ota in the united states became the template for lots of other countries around the world, and it still exists elsewhere. so we don't have the equipment of that now, which is why we keep having these partisan conversation about technology.y. we probably should have some kind of cdc for digital public health. so we do have something like that.

it's called the us-cert. and i'm on the site but my dad isn't. my dad is a very, very smart person to he got a house full of technology and implies no more updates. great, now my dad is going to get hacked because some is watching c-span. please don't hack my dad. if we start, if we refrain the conversation of the technology that we use, and we soon, we agree digital literacy is important, then isn't it time with something like a cdc whose job it is in a very effective way, in a measured way, educate the everyday person about the benefits and dangers, you know, of using digital tools and infrastructure and online media, but in a way that's relatable. >> in the last election the discussion of cybersecurity was not great.

what are the signs you are going to be looking for to see that we're getting at least some of more intelligent and we cannot have a debate on cybersecurity that features the phrase the 40? >> so again here's how far out of touch those are very user that hackers are still people. they are not. on the more advanced side of this space, people have now written programs to do this automatically. so the 400-pound, like slob tackle your pitching as the cause of election problems, like that's not what, that's not what we're talking about. >> miniaturizing it into a four-pound laptop. >> and smaller than that. and when you think of hacking, like you're probably probably still thinking about y computer. within our lifetimes, and

probably sometime in the next 15 years, we're going to have new types of technology that we ingest, that we wear for a variety of different informational and medica purposes, right? i don't think that anybody has a clue ask to what's coming. i don't think the people in washington, d.c. have thought this through. there are very smart people here whose voices would be great to hear in a way that's easy for everybody to understand, but i just don't think, i don't think we aret prepared. my job is not to constantly look for doom and gloom. however, given what i know to be true today and the data that i've got available, i'm having a hard time, i'm having a hard time. >> and i guess, then, what? we are just going further down this path of stumbling and looking backwards? >> so there is hope for

redemption. i don't think that we're all living in westworld and that we are preprogrammed box turning at somebody else's source code. we do have the ability to change. we have the ability to write the future that we want but we have to decide that we want something different and that we have to push up our sleeves and do the difficult job of making sure that all of the pieces are in place so that we can create that future that we want. if you don't want to live in a world of splintered internets, right, we are depending on where you are you may or may not have access to information which is going to make the containment of fake news that much more difficult, then we can do something about it now. so i watched, so twitter, you know, promised, make big promises. facebook is made the promises they going to do something to combat it.

facebook send out, did you get the survey? >> i disrespected. >> unethical enough either. either. i didn't get the survey. >> did anybody get the survey about what news sites to trust on facebook? >> there is a to question survey that was basically like, do you trust any of these sources? and then, i mean, that was basically it. twitter has promised to combat news problems, fake news problems. on saturday i was in my office working. it was international holocaust remembrance day. on theme left rail where all the trending topics, one of them was islam. i click on it to see what was going on at the very top news story was from russia today. it was a totally made-up story, and i'm not even going to repeat it. it doesn't bear my repeating.

it was a made-up story. i have a verified account. my question is, this is not magical algorithmic mathematical pixie dust that nobody can grab out of the arabic it's very hard to fix that . it's not that hard to fix. we have just chose not to. there's a business use case for not fixing the problem. we keep clicking because of want to see the crazy thing that's going to happen next so we're part of the problem, too. we all have to decide we want a different future. then we have to do something about it and doing something about it isn't just having occasional beatings where policymakers at the speed of washington, d.c. that's not a good thing. >> on the other hand, i have seen so much, it's not easy to gain facebook, there's also spreading -- >> sure. >> that's the biggest virus. >> by that is perpetuated.

i mean, the problem is that our current in that place very well to our systems and we're constantly chasing. so on the one hand, it's our biology. it's not our fault, right? on the other. hand, there are other times when we have medical ailments and illnesses and we have figured out a way to around it i feel like we have the capacity to get around this as well. but the problem is where all enjoying this too much. we like to smack talk all of these different, but he has an opinion on net neutrality. burger king has an opinion on net neutrality. why, right? why does burger king? >> i i understand the ad didn't capture it correctly. >> that's not the point. doesn't matter if it's fake news or actual news or actual information. everybody wants the a part of

the fray, and in the digital realm our attention is currency and it's harder and harder to grab on to that currency and to earn the currency. we have to decide that we want a different future for ourselves. that's our mandate. >> your book is all about how to be a better futurist. let's close out by throwing out some questions people should be asking when he sees him crazy report, here's a security breach come here's the study visit such and such is possible on facebook. here's this other thing that you can now worried about. >> i open first all of my research methodology about a year ago. it's the book but it's also publicly available. my feeling is that the kind of work that i do is something that anybody can do, but again you have to make a decision that you want to choose a different path going forward. so on the digital literally front door a lot of amazing

organizations that are working on this. alex sitting in front of me is doing some of this. there's a lot of different ways and tools to help. in terms of thinking about the future, it has to be a deliberate process and it's not like reading mashable and tech crunch and checking the winds. there's more to it than that. something everybody's office should be fully engaged in. the last piece of advice is, i'd like for us to also down a little bit. i know that we living in a fast-paced society, but the technology that we are confronting is amazing. several years from now we are going to be living in a magical world. at some point somebody is going to want to legislate against it took some is going to break the law in a a way we haven't thout

of before. i have yet to hit anybody havea conversation about artificial narrow intelligence and whether or not some of our constitutional guarantees apply to code. once that code is essentially enslaved to us. we have a lot of really difficult questions on the horizon, andot it's best not to answer those questions underdressed. everybody can take a moment and learn a bit more and engage a little bit more. hopefully we'll all be better off in the long run. >> that's perfect timing since now there is a coffee break. >> get a drink somewhere at a bar if i depressed you, i guess. [laughing] >> great, thank you. >> thanks. [applause] [inaudible conversations]

[inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] welcome everybody. thank you for coming back. this is like, folks, we have today for lunch we are sandwiching lunch between two chairmen. chairman pearce we have coming up chairman goodlatte and chairman walden any between we had a quick lunch. we we are on a tight schedule but to introduce our keynote speaker for the first part, the prelunch i want to introduce jerry berman who spoke about earlier today. jerry created all of this. it was his vision to create an organization that could generate internet policy conversation when nobody