good public-private partnership between the fcc and manufacturers to lead to better cyber outcomes. it's a voluntary program so what you want is to be market driven and to make sure that it succeeds through wide deployment. >> we look forward to helping support that program and it is as you said a competitive differentiator for companies to use to inform consumers about the care they take with the manufacturing of the deployment of products. the last technology question, not surprisingly given what we've been talking about all day, ai. we've seen fcc engagement with aia in the headlines this week helping track down a robo call callerwho enabled ei to be usedo spoof the president in a political primary.

.. when you and i were baby lawyers back in the day at. [laughter] i think there are several ways we are looking at ai. both its benefits and its risks. and in addition to looking at it how it encourages robocalls or can be used for robocalls to mitigate against robocalls and robotech looking for an accessibility point of view lot of work being done with ai and speech recognition the advisory

council is looking as a working group on ai. the potentials and risks with ai. the chairwoman to announce she circulated and voted to approve a declaratory ruling that artificially or faked of voices using artificial intelligence are covered under the telephone consumer protection act. they are prohibited without prior consent. this will help ensure consumers are not subject to fraud. and really harassment through these terrible robocalls and robotech strip. in addition there is a lot of talk about looking at it for classroom management. there is a lot of good and interesting uses for artificial

intelligence that i think we are going to see develop more and more. and of course we need to be careful about the risks and make sure it's used responsibly. but how industry can help, for me i've been on a mission to educate myself as much as possible on ai because i'm not an expert. i just went to a conference this weekend one of the professors said that professors like to say i don't know anything about this, but. [laughter] and i want to stop having to say i don't know anything about this, but. >> look forward to helping on the educational mission we are so lucky the president picked you to fill this role at the commission please join me in thanking fcc commissioner ana gomez. [applause]

[background noises] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ please welcome claire ceo salesforce ai global technology correspondent at alex rios. ♪ hello everyone. everyone here has been drowning and ai hype for a year now. it's going to save and revolutionize the world at its winter revolutionize the world and kill us all. i don't remind either i want us to stop in some real practical round and how people are practically using a isa maybe kick us off our vulgar thousands

of clients what are some of the surprising ways and uses you have seen? >> what a fascinating time. i feel like it's 1998 for ai. we are starting to simple use cases but so much of the potential and some of the risks are still to come. it's her tremendous learning moment for everyone whether you're in the public sector, private sector academe is an exciting time for there is tremendous opportunity for ai to really benefit all kinds of people from around the world and certainly in our country. we are very fortunate to be in a pole position in america when it comes to ai. in terms of what we're seeing we are seeingfrom customers andy interesting reverie enterprise customer and small businesses were hearing everyone start the same question which is how do i trust her generative ai? both from data privacy and

security since as well as ethics as well as understanding this a black box input generates an output given ai and generative ai in particular is not deterministic it is statistical. the same exempt prompt you put in can output something different every simple time you ask it. so that's a new paradigm for software it's a new paradigm for technology that everyone is going to have to get used to. the number one question is trust. this also happens to be our company's number one value. how we engineer trust into the product and help our customers deploy ai in a safe and secure way that respects their data privacy and security? that is number one. the number two question is companies felt underwhelmed by the earlier investments in the last big trend around the blockk chain and the meta- verse.

so this time around in the economic environment every ceo what is the business case for ai? brennan, training on the large language of models can get really expensive. there has to be a business case in mind with its bright driving productivity increase in the sales out bogus driving efficiency there has to be a business case there. and then the third question and it's a really big one is how do we drive change? especially if you're bigger company the more employees you have for. >> like people management question you can buy whatever tech you want but you also have to change people and train people get them ready for. >> you could mail the trust part you got the best data privacy data security with ai. you can have the business case but then how do you read trained re- skill in upscale all of your employees? that's a very tall order went to

the '90s how to teach everybody in your company to use internet. it's very difficult it doesn't happen overnight. it cannot be top-down or bottom-up it has to be both but it has to be the company enabling a secure environment for employees to test and learn and experiment and get really comfortable with these technologies. just with e-mail in the '90s. then it's incumbent on individual line managers and employees i can't do the job without learning e-mail without using the internet. the same question is to be asked by every employee every american today in regards to ai for. >> there's a lot to unpack there. maybe it lip service and safety issues we've had some discussions around that already today. what do developers have to have in mind when it comes to safety what are the top priorities?

and then from the sounds of your answer they don't just have to have safety in mind they have to show that they work. they have to prove to customers they have done that work so what is the best way for developers or this salesforce we don't just have it as a brand. parks what is that mean? first of all like to think of it in terms of the three ages and the four d's tell people remember the three ages what should ai be? it should be helpful, it should be harmless, it should be honest. there's all kinds of saying sametechnology buys guard rail e you could build and i'll talk more about that in terms of the four d's this is what ai these are the big risks of ai we need to think about again as technology builders and providers as well as policymakers. we want to make sure ai -- were being careful about data leakage and data privacy issue. then disinformation, discrimination, we have to think

about displacement. some jobs are going to be created some jobs are going to go away. as a society, policymakers, community how do we come together and help society prepare? in terms of how the sales force thanks about managing the four d's in three ages we start at the technology layer. underlies all of our ai. it's features like citations. do i know where this particular answers coming from? is it point back to the document and reference the official document that it comes back from. includes a feature like data masking. you may not want to send into a large language model. how do wheat mask that dataquest arc we have toxicity filters.

within customer data as you can imagine there are certain fields of customer data that we found ed that tend to introduce bias in its ai models. i could be sons zip code, their gender, or customers have the ability to choose -- ticket marches sensitive data field that gets withheld from what get sent to the large language model. once the output is generated i have another set of checks through toxicity filters our research group has developed. we also take an audit trail every step of the way. what was provided into the model. this a number of features from engineering that's engineered into orenstein public that's a first level. the second is a policy standpoint. it's important to think about

how our technologies can be used under put those governors in place into the platform itself. as the underlying but it's the policy we choose to build into the product. one is calling a customer of the customers chatting with our policy regardless of which customers using that with their customer i have to self identify as ai. the ultimate end customer who is engaging regardless whether it's messaging or e-mail they know they're doing with ai versus a great person. we disallow use of facial recognition there's a lot of bias. as a product policy aspects. finally our office of ethical technologies and ai have been very proactive in sharing our principles for responsible ai we

open source these principles we are trying to teach everyone of our customers and implement that when the product and customer terms of service for. >> remind me of a conversation i had this morning. i was chatting with an executive he was saying the ethical aspects one of the elements of ai policy should be driven centrally ai affects every part of your organization you nelson ed central parts rolling out ai and training people. would you agree with that perspective the ethics are so central they have to come from the top a concert marking people like yourself and with your customers you want the really senior executives having that discussion from the beginning for. >> it ties back to the earlier discussion this ai change management happen top-down? the certain things like ethical principles guardrails providing a secure environment like the

einstein trust for your employees. that needs to been able top-down by the ceo. >> exactly. nor is it wise for some organizations have blocked degenerative ai entirely just like their organizations in the '90s a block the internet told employees they cannot use the internet because of the risks concerns i don't think that's the right call for most companies and industries it hurts your business competitive long-term. better is to offer a safe environment provide training and resources employees have to go through the training and take the initiative to actually start using the technologies and a great job descriptions of how they spend their time for. >> one alaska politics and policy question before we get into workforce and education. we have had a pretty productive discussion in washington over the past year. genuine people want to be better informed about ai. but we are in the zone of good

intentions still. not a huge amount of action. unsatisfied with the conversation isn't where it's going? does it work competence of regulated? >> i've never worked in washington for a public servant i appreciate everybody, all of you are because it is so important is a lot of work that's been going on. as a layperson i have been pleasantly surprised by the level and quality of dialogue i am hearing especially in this country about the opportunities are in some of the risks. one of the areas where i see it as a big opportunity for us this there's a lot of discussion about what not to do what to disallow it. and certainly especially using an updating laws that we have you heard commissioner gomez reference the cbc that's it existing law it's a perfect

vehicle for making sure the robocalls from ai are forbidden or can consumer opted in for there's a lot of discussion already about what we disallow. there's an even bigger need an equal need to talk about what new policies we need to create. about what we should be doing. k-12 education i have young kids in elementary school and i do not know if they are learning the skills they need to be successful in an ai economy. >> i think you do they are not learning them. that's the point. >> recognized very difficult it's state-by-state there's a lot that needs to be happening for there's a dialogue i don't hear enough about to be just as a citizen i want to make sure walk but we should be to acknowledge so we shouldn't be doing. >> putting president for a day

the ceo hat combine forces here, what would you do to inject more ai or a better understanding and skills of ai into the k -- 12 system but we need to own workplaces as adults forget retraining and some upscaling. what do kids today need to have? >> every job is going to be transformed by ai. for us to help educate the workers of tomorrow every single person every single child in america it needs to learn how to use ai to be more effective. they also need to understand the limitations of ai it hallucinates it makes up facts. being able to more than ever understand footnotes and citations and doing your homework and not just taking it as is. social media was a perfect example of people not realizing these algorithms were manipulating our thoughts and that is an awareness every

student in america should go through his understanding this is not true just because i see it on the internet this is not truth just because chat gdp tells me sober i should have a healthy level of skepticism and i should follow these steps to fact check what is being been presented to me before forming an opinion. >> it is almost like ai literacy as an extension of digital literacy not just go and learn how to code there are other softer skills people are going to need. >> not just learning how to code but also learning how to code that's was going to go next next is how can he say i to be more effective? consider banning check gdp for essay writing how do we teach kids when to use it and still be a critical thinker when you have this amazing tool? snow but you don't know for. >> very. >> semi two in the '90s or the 80s when spreadsheets were invented you are not going to not teach kids how to use

spreadsheets. but they have to understand how the underlying macros are formulated they have to understand what it's automating for you in the same goes for ai and understand the downside of ai and when not to trust it and the third piece is coding i'm a big believer every person, every child in america needs learn how to code it is becoming as important as reading and math. >> one minor child on that point. it would not dispute coding is really useful but one of the leaps forward with the generative ai natural language property. more people who do not have the coding skills have ways to ask things to be created through ai. you thought about coding and how does that connect them to work us as adults what we can expect a change in her own jobs over the next few years?

>> if you think the natural ai it goes back to understand the underlying mechanism of how it works. and even if every student is not actually directly coding it's important for them to understand what's under the hood and how they're getting the answers. going back to let's say the excel spreadsheet or graphing calculator analogy. >> thinking about the workforce more specifically, i am not someone who thanks is going to be massive job displacement some jobs are going to go is going to be massive tests displacement elements of her jobs are going to change and in a best case scenario that's going to lead to us doing hired valued work that's not how it works out us on how globalization worked out. and somehow the internet affected journalism. so i am wondering do you have any insights about professions

you think will be effective first or where you see people moving the high-value work? >> i've many thoughts on this. first is we don't know what we don't know and i will share an example. for many years the conventional wisdom evening technology industry was if you are creative you will be safe from ai. but we are seeing now ai is really good at generating images and video. moving everything all at once they is generative ai to produce most of the special effects in that movie. that movie traditionally would have had nearly a thousand people work on special effects they were able to accomplish that was seven people because of ai. we are not always able to get an accurately predict where ai will have impact and what won't we have to be prepared and

continuously check in. that being said i see a lot of reasons for optimism i will share one my favorite examples and early customer that we partner with an eye work very closely with the developer generative ai product is gucci november of 2020 when there is a delegation me and several others from milan we are meeting at the salesforce tower in san francisco. as one of the first music took postcode we were all a little nervous of each meeting in person again. they had an issue which so many companies to drink open which is being able to hire enough staff for their client services a lot of people suddenly wanted to work from home they did not want to be the contact center. we focused our discussion on how do we address the client demand for wanting customer support given the labor crunch, the labor shortage? it was at that meeting our chief scientist salesforce former

sanford ai professor talked about the large language models he and his team had been developing this was a year before chat gdp was released. it was such a big idea and the customer so forward leaning they said let's experiment let's try it out and see if it works so we've been working together over the last two and half years and the amazing thing is just learning from the client service providers how to provide the generative ai and a way that helps address that menial tasks when a customer calls in and has a question especially if you are a newly hired service advisor razzing then scramble to look up the answer and put the client on hold generative ai is able to automate that and provide the answer right there the client service advisor is able to focus on the clients. focus on deepening the

relationship what he found a something amazing in addition to reducing the amount of time to address the port questions it has empowered client service advisors to become sellers and become veranda storytellers because of ai augmenting them at every step for. >> to the need a lot of handholding because luxury brands are controlling and not being experimented did it take a lot of time? >> we work together, spent a lot of learning luxury brand it's important your brand perfect you can't have it a little bit off and so ai had to have guardrails we had to keep testing we had to verify work with most expert client service advisors first so they could spot when their issues and fix the issues once issues were gone we scaled it out to everyone else. but it's amazing this team of customer support representatives have reinvented their careers and now that you're in the best work of their careers are not just limited to customer support

they are branded storytellers they are in sales. it reminds me of the movie the matrix. [laughter] went he decides he wants to learn kung fu is augmented with that skill in right away he knows the skill that is the way i felt sings and is gucci client service advisors work no one taught them how to so no one told them how to be a brand storyteller with ai helping them all the sudden you're able to unlock this incredible potential for quick sitting up they could build it and would take. [laughter] >> no drugs involved are. >> thank you so much we are out of time and fortunately. but it has been a great conversation, thank you. text thank you. [applause] ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪

♪ >> from the same event a conversation that white house oe public engagement director steven benjamin on infrastructure, its impact on u.s. communities in the future of the tech workforce it. this runs 20 minutes. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ next up tracy owens director u.s. public affairs. [applause] >> good afternoon. as you just heard my name is tracy owens i am the public affairs for the u.s. at sage.

i am also very proud alumnus. [applause] absolutely. i am grateful for the opportunity it has provided me. i am even more grateful and proud of the opportunities it is continuing to provide for students. you will hear a little bit more about that later but before i discuss more about morehouse i like to tell you more about sage. for those of you who do not know sage is a 50 tech company founded just over 40 years ago about 10 billion pounds was 11000 colleagues globally. sage is a market leader in accounting, financial, hr and payroll technology for small and medium-size businesses is about nine and a% of the u.s. economy. we enable them to streamline operations make more informed decisions and be more productive

bring business owners and their workforces from repetitive administration tasks and enable them to deliver it more more stc and higher value tasks ultimately increasing the productivity. while we are globally headquartered in that uk, and the u.s. we are headquartered in atlanta. a rapidly growing entrepreneurial community and we have a number of investments there including a new building that quadruples our square footage space in atlanta. and also a lot of investments and skills programs to support entrepreneurs. our company purpose is to knock down barriers so that everyone can thrive. sage is committed to working together with the right part is to build a trusted and close a digital economy. our ai vision is a world where business leaders have real-time trusted information about their business' financial performance to guide their strategy. the scale and of the economy

sustainably we need a diverse high-performing human culture. with the rapid advances in ai which will have a profound and ultimately positive effect on the work there has never been a more important time for companies like sage to embrace community partnerships to ensure progress is inclusive and that it can be scaled. too often tech is rolled out with a one-size-fits-all mentality even though it can have lasting consequences on those not considered during its development. not having diverse backgrounds at the table risks missing on some of the keenest insight available to make technology work at its best. that is one reason why sage embrace the opportunity to partner that includes my sisters from college as well to procreate the software engineering and conversational ai program providing students of color with more opportunities to use in studying emerging

technologies. and provide mentoring and internship programs to make sure we capitalize in the town opportunities. i am glad the doctor and some students are here today. they would not mind if they could stand for second i would love for them to be recognized. [applause] thank you. thank you. we are also joined by a couple of my colleagues from sage who have been instrumental in making sure these programs get off the ground and are big supporters of our efforts. if you would not mind standing? [applause] thank you. the wider opportunity to participate in broadening impact on diversifying the tech industry can be amplified.

sage sees this is not only doing what's right and just also is what we should be doing to build strong communities and removing barriers to success. the workforce in general and tech specifically bring some ofe greatest brainpower available to create the best services as possible. diversifying tech is not enough. we also believe making sure small businesses have an opportunity to thrive it. particularly those who have had historical and systemic barriers placed in front of them. sage and only once to increase traversing the chexsystems of service customers, went to make sure we are providing services to those who need it most of the marketplace our efforts are concentrated on elevating human work by solving a customer's needs by eliminating the repetitive and focusing on building trust bread building trust requires me of the most diverse thinking available and at the table. ai is set to contribute

significantly to modernizing re- envisioned accounting roles. making them more appealing to a new generation, talent from all walks of life. ai can handle routine tasks like transaction processing and arrow spotting improving work life balance by handling entire sets of tasks that thomas will he. ai also supports work/life balance and remote work. fitting right into the demand for a new workforce that is emerging. diversity intact does not just mean for the technical roles its diversity across the entire company. it all works together to build the best products and services for customers. to be cleared technology does not bond to one company it's far bigger than that. as we know talent will likely not just work for us that likely for a lot of people and a lot of companies in this room right now. it is incumbent all of us

participate in building the next great workforce it helps lift all communities i make sure the work we do is the best it can possibly be. in closing i would state sage is working hard how tech provides for a more inclusive environment that helps to build the next great workforce. partnerships like morehouse are just a part of it. but a very important part. more is needed we are certainly committed to doing more toward that effort. collectively we can make a huge difference. and we look forward to working with many of you in this room on the journey. we hope that we can make a real big difference in how the tech workforce and beyond looks into the future. so thank you very much. [applause] ♪ ♪ ♪ place of welcome back with

mayor steven benjamin. advisor to the president and director of the white house office of public engagement. [applause] clicks thank you so much for being here with us. thank you for making the turbo from 1600 pennsylvania two joints at such a great honor to have your projects thank you, thank you so much i do not live at 1600 pennsylvania i just worked there. >> thank you for taking a trip over for work. on the work you are doing on behalf of the biden administration is a focus on engaging communities like ours the tech industry and other constituents to help drive the priorities of the administration. and we appreciate first and foremost how much you have given us the opportunity to participate in that process and help succeed in the important efforts are driving forward. one that is top of mine for all of us in the tech industry and the chips and science act and

the implementation taking place there. i wanted to ask for your perspective on that and audits of the bipartisan infrastructure laws a big part of that. let's start with chips, the action happening there and what is your assessment of what we can do to support the work you're doing? >> first of all thank you. the two most powerful words in the english language are thank you but my wife says yes, ma'am. i say thank you. [laughter] thank you for having me and thank you for the partnership. those who have not had the opportunity to work with us in the past. those of a senior in the civil society who work every single day's subject matter experts are proximate to the world challenges facing the country. we work together to try to make

sure wouldn't rising up the presence debuted two years and whatnot for one reason. we get critical feedback helps us do our job better. the agenda in its entirety has been successful. on job creation. returning critical supply chains around chips. that's an amazing opportunity i am a former mayor is my title

suggests. eight comes up here every other month for infrastructure week. built hundred 36 miles of road. the bridge project on for 2 million jobs across this country we've seen unemployment under stork loads for under 4% for two years running. we see a really smart placed -based economic development. again comes to chips in particular bringing back critical supply helping create high wage jobs including highways jobs it's allowing us a degree of security. access to the middle class unlike any other time it may be

these numbers was 1.2 trillion infrastructure even the american rescue plan. these numbers represented a leverage. it is a significant investment that actually is being complemented much more aggressively by the private sector in partnership with the public sector. in private sector announcements complementing the public sector investments. and if we do this right it will pay benefits for posterity. by helping to improve the economy in the health of our families. >> one other area of this digital infrastructure investment the administration has been very focused on a new have been very focused on its address in the digital divide.

access to broadbent which is an important goal given how indispensable broadbent is an all access to life from education, to medical care, to future opportunities. congress sent a bipartisan basis to be supported a lot of programs that help invest in closing the digital divide. it will close tomorrow because congress has not started it up back up again. it's one of those programs. can you talk a little bit about the president's interest in continuing this work? your view of how the digital divide needs to be viewed what congress should be doing to help foster more and broader access to broadbent for all americans? >> and what sheriff alan davidson has got all caps her. >> he is not. it's probably the first at responder authority incredible

work he has done to help build out 21st century infrastructure. action access to the injured edge. in every field of life is necessary right now. i think it's moving somewhere and $90 billion or what have you. it's really wonderful partnership with internet providers that manifest itself in the acp program. it cannot be overstated how important this is. not taking new applicants as of this week. the program will expire this spring. you think about this scale and how it got to this point. we are talking 23 million people all across this country.

give access to free internet or significantly reduces their internet. we have heard story after story of a real families, real challenges the real issues that not for this program would not have access to the internet. as long as staff is been around only 29 my people instead of arty 23 million people acp and the wonderful partnership we have responsibilities to be a politician and i work for the government. i can't tell you to do something an advocate but for those of you who have a voice it's really important the same bipartisan leadership that you will do on acp that steps up and make sure we will continue to provide these opportunities for families all across this country. the good thing about it when you reach that kind of scale all

across the country it is worth advocating for and fighting for hopefully and prayerfully congress steps up and allows us to continue the program and maybe even continue to expand to progress the president's been out on the road a lot in recent weeks and months talking at the importance of the superstructure investment. it's obviously bringing a lot of great construction projects to a number of places around the country. it's important for the national security for that success. the importance of this investment when the upgrades to systems. the technology investment the iti members are doing. can we help the rest of the country understand how important these investments are?

how much they're helping with economic growth and development creating job opportunities. what's the story we should be out there talking about? >> in the former of the african mayors association. and the mutual admiration society. i would tell you mayors get it they see the significant investment. but it does help to have partnerships with each and every one of you who are true leaders in this field to make sure everyone understands these are not one-time investments. if you build a thoughtful partnership that allows you to strategically invest for posterity. pandemic are economic or social disruptions. i would build for the future.

longer term two-tiered from the public, private and philanthropic center they cannot be overstated. realizing all cities have something in common. the investments have taken unique characteristics i will tell you if you don't arty have a relationship with the mayor and the city you at work or have significant number of people i would encourage you to reach out to her, reach out to him they are ways you can inform each other to make sure these investments not only affect me and you but our children's

children and children after that pickwick saucing on to ask you about the stem education and workforce opportunities. weird tracy from sage talk about we have a great group from morehouse who are visiting with us. tracy did not mention this. it's responsible for producing more black mail graduates with masters and phd's than any other profession the country i did not just make that up. [applause] though the technology industry is focus with help of people like the doctor and the people at morehouse creating stem opportunities for historically underrepresented communities. the buy demonstration is very focused on this as well of the infrastructure investment we are talking about companies the more skilled workers what's the focus there? >> i was hustling in the back

like my teenage daughters do i hurt morehouse and spelman that i hear someone as well? i have a freshman at spelman. my heart and my money. [laughter] i have to shut up the spelman as well. the investment and the talent pipeline the domestic talent pipeline cannot be overstated. it is important to reach deep and wide and building the pipeline for many years to come. i would encourage you if you're already investing in your company's make sure you dramatically widen and deepen the talent pool of the amazing and young people and i'd say you're missing out. you invests in the build up your

jute well it is critical and every just not mail benefit. allows us to the president said to build congress from the bottom of a metal output if we do that working people do so much better than the middle class they continue to grow and certainly those who do well will prosper as well. so is that's our time up? >> thank you for all you do. looking forward to continuing to work with you on behalf of the president and vice president and get the job done god bless you all. [applause]

♪ >> to a discussion on the benefits and dangers of artificial intelligence with the deputy national security adviser for cyber and emerging technologies and new burger sheet stresses the importance of cyber security and protecting infrastructure from the technology industry council tech policy summit this is about 35 minutes. ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ joining us now iti board member senior vice president of global government affairs. [applause] >> hi everybody. it is a genuine pleasure to host this event and i want to thank

the iti team for all the hard work it takes to have another intersect event. it's clear american ingenuity drives research and development propelling us to new lot technological futures. and policies that promote rnd and strong patent protections will ensure american companies remain their technology leadership. the united states is set to play a pivotal role in shaping the standards that will guide the future of ai. but a pivotal role credit wireless technology focus on democratizing the benefits access to ai in the palms of people's hands by their connected devices. primary discussions around training andnt developing large language models. this year the ai conversation will shift toward the proliferation of generative ai

applications and inference making technology both easier to use and more useful. however, sai becomes more integrated in our daily lives addressing a responsible ai becomes increasingly urgent. it is imperative we address risks and unintended consequences. today we are showcasing just outside the world's first chip set design complex challenges around transparency and authenticity and digital content across smartta phones worldwide. in collaboration with our technology partner soon enabled devices that can add content credentials to any image output. whether it's synthetic or authentic. addressing these challenges necessitate strong between the pipe private and public sectors but who better to guide us through these discussions that administrator helen davidson of the national telecom information

administration. before we welcome him by way of introduction let's take a moment to applaud the administration forward thinking investments. notably open radio access network initiative the supply chain innovation fund driving american connectivity and innovation this effort fueled relentless cycle of innovation testing deployments empowering companies to leverage their r&d investments and unleash the power of market competition. additionally we commend work on national spectrum strategy which is a crucial blueprint for insuring american leadership in the 5gca advanced and 60 technology. this shift towards open deployment approach for 5g and beyond and bolstered by robust spectrum pipeline and government support highlights pivotal role

of initiatives spearheaded by alan davidson in collaboration with teams at the u.s. department of commerce and across the u.s. government. now with great excitement and anticipated let's welcome administrator davidson to the stage bunk iti president and ceo jason to share their invaluable insight on navigating the future of ai and technology policy. ♪ >> appreciate the call and hello again everybody. please. >> thank you. alan davidson joins us as heated last year end as he has in prior events we are thrilled to have you back, welcome back. >> i'm excited to be here, thanks, great space bar. >> it is a cool space it's a beautiful day inside and out. thank you for taking the time to talk to us. a lot on your plate that's relevant to the membership nothing on your plate is not

relevant to the iti membership agree that's good to hear working on a lot of things. we are indeed. quickly what sort they are. you are referenced in the executive order and a work is underways under a very tight timetable not given it a lot of fun the first 90 day deadline expired on a sunday. [laughter] can you talk to us about what you have the team prioritizing and what you need from us in order to accomplish the lofty goals for ai activity? >> the first of all thank you for having me. it is great to be here. i will title as a former iti board member and a past life it's always nice evacuating you so congratulations on what you have been doing. >> thank you. >> it's an exciting and interestingst time to be working in the space you have been hearing a lot about it today. responsible ai innovation is going to transform our economy. it is hard to imagine a sector of the economy that is not going

to be touched by all of this. it is going to bring a lot of benefits to people that is the strong belief across the administration. we need to promote that innovation but we also know we are only going to succeed in its if we ensure we are also addressing that serious risks that are out there that exist today. not speculative security, privacy, bias the systems. we are thinking across the board about all these things. you have seen with a sense of urgency the way government is addressing this. we are early still in the lifecycle of all of this. and yet people are jumping in and appropriately. you saw the set of commitments we were able to get from leading ai companies this summer. incredibly important. the executive order people have talked about which we are now implementing against, very important. very ambitious. the work we're doing we are doinginternationally wit. nci has been a part of all that hwith the president's principal

adviser and telecommunication policy. we are deeply engaged in the ai policy space. for us right now is a couple of big projects we are doing a big report on aipo accountability ad auditing. that started over a year ago. we've got a big homework assignment on open model in ai. i'd love to tell you more about that. we're also doing a lot of work at the policy level internationally in the coordination of all of this. there is a lot going on we are excited to be a big part of what's happening within the administration. >> it's great i'll give the opportunity to talk about open model ai if you address a rumor off the record. [laughter] that an tia is considering changing its name to nta. >> 's talk about ai these days? won't he do such a thing? >> he is completely joking. it would require action by congress to change our name. but a guy can dream.

[laughter] we are doing a lot of the space on this issue around open model it's widely available this question open source ai. it is a really hard probably got a homework assignment and the executive order to say produce a report for the president by the end of july so we are on the clock about art what our approach to these models these open ai systems should be. i will say this real risk and benefits. there is real concern about safety if you open up models and let them be used without the safeguards that might be built and otherwise what are the risks? at the same timeth we know there can be benefits to openness. and i think there is a concern a competition concern if there is only a small number of companies that control the most important

models. and openness can be approach of that. so this is going to be an ongoing conversation. i think the good news is we have learned already there are gradients of openness is not a binary thing that may provide us with a path to think about how we address this burden stay tuned for more a report is coming out in july. >> talk about things that require act or action on support. ncias is the principal telecom advisor to the president. occasion of the present has to issue public reminders of that as he did with the faa but were not going to talk about that. [laughter] we are going to talk about the national spectrum strategy. that was a comprehensive almost overwhelming effort to bring some direction to the future course of activity in this area. i do not know how you have enough people to do all the work you've been assigned to do but this is t another one that has some labels tell us where the

latest area of activity as of that? >> it's a super interesting and important area for our country and one that does not always get the airtime, no pun intended. [laughter] that it deserves. it is probably one of our nation's most important nresources and also one of our most scarce resources. the demand for spectrum continues toru increase. we need it probably connected devices we know and love. the federal government needs it for everything from aviation readers to defense missions. satellites to monitor the climate. all of that's powered by spectrum. we need to do a good job of managing the resources. the last two years we have been working on a national spectrum strategy we have been overdue to have i'm so pleased we were able to release one at the white house this november thank you for joining us.

>> thank you for the invitation great to t be there. >> it lays out a path for how we are going as a country to tackle this hard to challenge in front of us this very hard challenge of making sure we can feed the pipeline of spectrum needed for private sector use and make sure we have enough federal missions. we laid out a four-part strategy be a pipeline of spectrum to study over the next years. the dynamic spectrum sharing, new collaborations with the , private sector and a real attention to the workforce. we need more engineers out there all the kids today want to study machine learning. there are good jobs and understand the spectrum and we knew more people in the space big. >> a lot of work to be done on the spectrum strategy. these are unfortunately outside of your purview but congress has

not moved forward on a couple of issues that are relevant to the work. one is spectrum auctions which i know many have expressed concern about auction authority aspiring for it what's a real-life impact of that? and what are your hopes again recognizing you do not have a voice in congress. what are your hopes for getting that issue resolved? >> it is kind of crazy we do not have spectrum authority for the fcc. the chairwoman has spoken pretty eloquently about how important that is for the continued work in this space. if we are going to continue to have a smart spectrum strategy for this country we need to have that authority reinstated. we are hopeful there will be an opportunity to to do that. a lot of people on both sides of the aisle understand the importance of that. >> us talk about broadband more generally. because this is another area were somehow you have people on

staff working on this issue. >> is kind of like a start up in government. i've been in theve chair for abt two years. two years, almost 40% of ntia is brand-new since i started. so we have had to grow a lot for this. a lot of it for our broadband work. but it's fun to run a start up do it in government. we have grown a lot. >> next talk about government. what is the most important, from your perspective, of the work underway? >> it is a historic moment. . we have this incredible opportunity -- we have been talking about the digital divide for 25 years. in the bipartisan infrastructure law we finally got resources to do something about it. the president has given us a mission, connect everyone. everyone in america. he says it all the time. with reliable, internet service. we are well on the way. it wil we've started, we have grant programs million dollars out the

door. $2 million in tribe thal funding out the door and you know questionty plans with every state and now the big money which is 42 million-dollar state program. this year will ben a big year t the state. last year we got plans at the end of the year so all eyes turn to the state. we need everybody's attention. all hands on deck moment. the truth is money is being spent right now to connect people. the early programs we started implementing like our broadband infrastructure program, we now past over 36,000 homes past. sove there's real people being connected right now.

>> and you've been working on this year for the first time. for industry, what do you need help with, in partnerships, programs, inputs into all of the different areas and you haven't talked about, industry can be helpful and be of service to you. >> wow, i will say the list is long. >> yes. >> you've heard a lot about ai but the truth is it's worthy of our attention and i just talked about project, it's a big deal to figure things out. we need to be smart with the industry. we have a lot going on in like

sort of the policy issues, privacy, i'm cochair in a big task force on kid's safety right now and come up with industry best practices. we are doing a big workshop in stanford. we just announced on march 13th industryic input. so that's another area. broadband, you know, we need acp funding, that's another thing out there. you heard that earlier today. just making sure that it's all hands on deck paying attention. we just need more people with dual competency in government and understand technology and talk about the policy implications and do this, we really appreciate the partnership with folks in the industry, folks in nonprofit who help us understand these issues better so thank you for your leadership in this space. thanks to everybody why is here being part of the conversation. >> thank you. >> talking about the

intersection between the technical know-how, we are lucky to have you. >> this is what we are allpp about. >> please join me in thanking allen davidson. >> thank you, thank you. [applause] >> this way. ♪ ♪ ♪

[applause] >> so glad that we are together. i love our conversation. for those who don't know stevens,a company working in the field of infrastructure, our whole history and the last couple of decades is creating internet of people theg way we entertain ourselves, the way we engage as a consumer, now the world is recognizing that we are introducing the internet of things and it's an order of magnitude out larger than the internet of people and so the key questions of cybersecurity and the use of ai are coming to infrastructure everywhere and here you are smack down in the middle of all that and what i would love to start, i know we have questions about the executive order, et cetera but you're in a role where you're tempting to solely focus on risk and yet you also focus on

opportunity. tell me about the balance that you're work to go achieve? >> absolutely. first of all, great to be with all of you, great to be with you, barbara. one of the things about at the i, thank you to the hosts is that we connect companies. so when we think about to your question, the promise intel of aii know this is the end of the day, you've had many, many discussions here so i thought i'd answer within the con text of a few examples of where we see beth and to give us kind of think about how we bring that together.

so an area of promise, to your first question on cybersecurity two areas. so the same models that can help us really analyze help code and analyze code, find holes, to exploit, to improve the code, to make it stronger, harder to explore in the hands of militia attacker, models help them find vulnerabilities that have been unpacked, that have not be secured to use those to the secure malware. that's an example of where essentially what we really want to do is ensure that they are using the models first, that we are improving products before we deploy them as well as using defined vulnerabilities in the most important products deployed across waterer systems, power systems to patch them first. one example, i think the second

one which always touches my heart, my husband and i have been involved in charity event. hearty with individuals with als, essentially lose ability to communicate, to move and minds are fully intact and their body slowly disintegrates and save llthem so that every vim is only communicating, translated to words so they can actually still communicate. we know the downside. we saw it in the recording of presidenthe biden. grandchild calling a grandparent saying they are in trouble. clearly in the hands of fraudster is a real concern. the goal on the promise we are moving ahead at speed while thinking from the outset how do

you do this responsibly to manage the risks. >> yeah, fascinating and we are living in a world where that promise go hand in hand. let's pull the thread a little bit more in the world of infrastructure, in the past people used to say thank heavens it's not connected but we recognize that there are threats to infrastructure connected or not and, in fact, it might be that connecting and actually using the tools available to us today could strengthen our infrastructure. your thoughts? >> i couldn't agree with more. we dealt with the iranian government hacking connected water system. water systems that were connected to the internet. we were able to have impact on the water systems because they used default password of 111. barely results to be called a

cyber-attack. so to your point, those systems twere likely not designed to be connected to the internet. perhaps way for administrator to also get his e-mail, his or her e-mail as they did their job. security has to look at where products are used today and ensure that we can secure them appropriately and then and then i have a question for you as we have to recognize that autonomous devices will be connect today the internet. think the infrastructure that we have, our electricity infrastructure, it has components which ideally weaken health after a major flood. as people seek to bring infrastructure online they can see which lines are down, they can see lines are optimized for maintenance but in an ideal world we want them to be

connected and in align with that, sone much connected infrastructure, factories more broadly. how do you think about the new risks as new products are built as well as you think about the broader infrastructure that you maintain? >> actually, thank you for asking because this is one of the most creative spaces anyone can work in today. yes, siemens is an expert in all kind of infrastructure, power grid, transportation networks, factories, buildings, there's control technology in all of those things and frankly people couldn't even envision our c connected infrastructure, call it -- yeah, four decades ago. so the idea of the way things were designed previously, the fundamentally different. here we live today in a world where able too put these tools o use. we have research and development department who that's is

constantly scanning the environment. we know that the value we can bring today is bringing the real and digital worlds together across all infrastructure. now, since 1970 researchers have been working with technologies like artificial intelligence, fantastic. the key question is how do we apply all of the new technologies to the world that we live in and we've been thinking in terms of industrial ai. you know, instead of using general ai on all of the internet, we can create trusted data sets using say a utilities or using manufacturer's own data. imagine a world in which you have sensors on all your equipment. you're producing so much information you can't process about but now with ai we can. so with about 2,000 ai experts across the global organization, 1400 cyber experts like wise working hand in hand with

product developers we are constantly evolving our design processes and standards so that we are actually building these things in. the concept is technology with purpose making sure that we are using our best imagination to imagine both the upside we are trying to achieve as well as potential unintended downside in how the deal with protection. >> it's really interesting because when we think about the most critical cybersecurity risk as a country, what we are most concerned about malicious countries or criminals disrupting water pipeline systems that americans rely on every day as individuals and companies. those power companies, those water companies are largely owned by private-sector entitiee and over the last day in the biden administration we fundamentally made changes to the model of how the systems are

secured while still working to keep the close partnership between the nation's critical infrastructure companies and the government so we have a couple of examples of that that you and i were talking about in a t green room that i want to list up here and get your thoughts on. so the first was we are one of the last countries in the world to put in place minimum cybersecurity standards for pipelines, for water systems to prevent the kind of thing i described where a foreign government could hack into a water system nearly by identifying and trying to fill passwords and i note that what was interesting there were 16 systems if i recall correctly that were hacked, all of those had the default passwords. so just goes to show don't cost a lot and don't cost much money they are the basic practices. so those are mandated for key sectors under existing safety

rules. the second piece was a voluntary program called the cyber trust program which really aims the say americans are bringing baby monitors into the home, security system, the smart doorbell system into the homes fitness tractors. think about energy and has the cyber trust mark and consumers when they are shopping in bestbuy and online can be safe online and we hope to see products on shelfs by the end of the year. as you think about as a company the two models i just described one is the model to lift up all to a minimum. second is a voluntary one to incentivize products frankly it's the wild west as you know and internet ofuc things devices to be built more securely and to

bring consumers into the mixso they show that they value secure products as they shop. >> both and, so a risk-based approach is the way we think about these things. how are these devices going to .be used and, therefore, we are going to need varying degrees of assurance. first week of framework for responsibilities ourselves. in cyber we established a charter of trust. this is what responsible companies should be doing for their own operations but we also recognize that we are going to need public trust as well and with that a risk-base approach with increasing degrees depending on criticality of the devices we are talking about. we believe that that's going to be an essential part of our future and i am watching the time with degreed because i could talk to you all amp about the topics that i know that our audience is very interested. two words about the eo and let me ask you to sort of wrap in

then how do you want as a government leader how do you want the private sector to be engaging as an administration is law firming this executive order and setting a framework for us. >> the first was the president negotiated voluntary commitments among a key set of ai companies to say you're building the technology, responsibility to do so in a way that gains american's trust, things like transparency on the data that models and vigorous and standardsus for that which don't exist yet but we need to be building as well as working together to ensure that when models are deployed it's truly clear how humans are interacting with it and how they are further refined to ensure they are safe over time. that was the fist set of value tear commitments, that was then

followed by the president executive order, lengthy executive order that hit at both orthe items that you said. agareas where we see tremendous promise and try to make operations more efficient and answer questions about complex areas in a simple way, in the education field, we want to encourage using ai to help tailor because each child studies in a different way. they are being used for job selection and there are concerns, garbage in and garbage out. they will spit out no surprise further, further recommendations that are likely to reflect that as well. on the broader side concerns

with how we test the models for cybersecurity risks for how they could potentially advance adversaries and developing different kinds of weapons that we are concerned about. the executive order is very vigorous so, for example, focus on -- as it relates to our conversation how models are deployed in the critical infrastructure. you can see the promise in models to add efficiency to rail systems, what should signaling systems, how should they provide guidance and the humans in the loop and the department of homeland security is receiving risk assessments from the various regulators and we use that as final step as input to step 3 to build new laws to deal with particular risks from ai.

when new laws are needed. and i think as we -- as we close the call it's really a call to action to say that as we bring the promise of ai and so many areas that there's a partnership between the private sector and government, something iti focuses on so that we are working together, for example, the new missed ai safety center and working to define standards for read-teaming. clearly we needs need companies sharing what they learn as they red-team so that is put in place to make testing as rigorous as it need to be giving important ways to see ai deployed across our economy and society. >> we are, in the midst of this change now and it's real and can i just say at siemens we are so proud of the members of the administration who put these first two steps in and we are working closely supporting the

efforts of -- of leader schumer as he is drawing the private sector to help shape the future legislation that will be the third stop. these are remarkable times and thankfully we have remarkable leaders like you. thank you so much. >> i appreciate all the work we do together. thank you all for listening and for your time. [applause] [applause] >> joining us now j ashley, executive vice president at ati. [applause] >> that was a terrific conversation that we just heard which emphasized the vital relationship between government and industry on the future of so many critical tech policy issues

in what is sure to be a dynamic year for tech policy iti will continue to convene the necessary and timely conversations on a topic that are top of mind for all of you. wee will continue to bring together voices from across the public and private sectors, explore pressing challenges and help to advance opportunities for u.s. tech leadership. i want to say a big thanks to all of our amazing speakers who have joined us today to share their insights about the future of innovation. it has been an honor to have you in the stage and also huge thanks to our sponsors, these itio member companies made tody possible, they are amazon, sales force, cisco, net app, cognizant, meta, nileson, siemens and master card. we encourage you to share your thoughts about today's conversations on social media

using the #the intersect2024. you can stay up to date with all of the ati's happening at linkedin. www.at the ic.org. please take a moment to complete the survey which is accessible here by qr code. it is brief and will help optimize programs going forward. finally we have a reception. we hope that you will join us just outside the back doors for a deception celebrating cybersecurity celebration. there you can also participate in activations by global innovators and networking connect with other tech policies leaders, please join us just outside this room immediately following the remarks, again, thanks for being part of the intersect 2024, we will see you

soon. [applause] >> c-span is your unfiltered view of government. we are funded by these television companies and more including cox. >> extremely rare. >> hi. >> but friends don't have to be. >> when you're connected you're not alone. >> cox supports c-span as public servicelong with these other television providers giving you a front-row seat to democracy. >> wednesday congressional budget office director philip testifies on the u.s. budgetary

and economic outlook before the house budget cmittee live coverage start at 10:00 a.m. eastern on c-span2, c-spa now our free mobile video app or online at c-span.org. >> on the weeks that >> saturdays at 7:00 p.m. eastern american history tv will air the ten-part series free to choose featuring noble prize winner. it first aired on public television in 1980 and wrote best-selling become with the same name, programs take us to locations important to the u.s. and world economies the freedman's advocate free market principles and in social policy.

other topics include welfare, education, equality, consumer and worker protection and inflation. watch free to choose saturdays at 7:00 p.m. eastern on american history tv the on c-span2. >> next discussion about the global economy and under u.s. trade strategy with trade representative katherine tai. this is an hour.

>> well, good morning, everybody. i'm sorry, good afternoon, everybody. thank you for joining us. we have about 100 people or 150 on zoom and welcome ambassador katherine tai. did you make it from down the street -- >> quite a commute. >> glad that you could find the building. we will talk about a lot of issues including upcoming the 13 and we want to cover a couple of other matters, very importantly u.s. trade representative travels somewhat less than the secretary of state but does not have a play.

>> exactly. >> so my question for you is, which is better global services on g united or concierge key on american? >> you're opening up a can of worms but you know what, it is an honor to serve and -- [laughter] >> serve in economy class which is a particular honor. i feel your pain. [laughter] >> it's great that you do that. let's start with worker centric trade policy. back in the old days there was a notion that since the u.s. market is relatively open, we don'ts have that much protection here we were able to reduce

barriers, we could export more by u.s. workers and export related jobs pay more than nonexport related jobs and we can use access to our market in a way to getting other countries to a perform and raise standards but tell me, can you envision an agreement that is worker centric looks like that reduces barriers? >> i don't know out of -- i think that was the thrust of current policies for a long time and we are trying to do something new. everything comes back to the data. you think about the frame of export led trade policies but

approximately speaking the percentage of exports to gdp is around 10%. it's not very high. some high export. i think trade exports and imports as part of gdp is 25%. below a quarter of gdp. you have to put that into context. you also have to think about that the fact of balance of exports and imports. we are -- we are the consumer, consume engine for the world. in terms of our policy now it is to think about like every negotiator does where your powerlies in the negotiation. when you think about worker

centric, you're right. we are thought of the trade negotiations and market open negotiations and being the leader and we are trying to persuade trading partners to adopt standards on labor practices, environmental practices as well. that was the fundamental deal and we would pay for higher standards using our market access which by the way your total is right, very open economy. i think that today if i'm going to boil it down to what we are trying to do it's to take the president's economic focus which is to build out and reinveigh reinvigorate themiddle class ane are trying to do, we are trying to create and maintain jobs and good jobs at home because that middle class is really important

to our democracy that middle class is important to our economy and the opportunity that we can continue to create for americans. it turns out that's what everybody is trying to do. everybody is trying to create jobs at home. everybody is trying to promote opportunity and so then the question becomes not what do i have to pay you to do x, y or z but how can we put the forces of our cooperation together. what does the deal look like where we are building our middle classes together and i think that the worker pieces come in along with the environment pieces as something that i shouldn't have to pay you to do.

it's really a very new vision for where we might be able to take globalization. >> back over the last 3 plus years. can you point to two examples where that has happened? >> yes, yes. when you look at how we've done, i know that a lot of folks in here we have at least 3uftr's in the room. lots of our trade policy, sister agency alumns in the room. we should definitely be keeping track of that. what i also want to reflect the enormity of this change in approach that we are trying to

harness and try to bring our partners on board with and in that sense then let's look at where our progress lies. our progress lies very much in how the conversation has fundamenta■lly shifted, that the conversation now is very much focused on supply chain resilience, equity and how not to leave those economies behind further and how not to leave those developing countries behind further especially in this era where we -- where we left the worst of the pandemic behind us. i think that if you're tracking those changes and conversations we have come a very, very listening way. we are opening up this next phase of trade policy approaches to be not persuading people but you have to change because all the evidence is around us that things are changing and success

lies and embracing the fact that we should change. the next set of questions that we are now approaching are what should that change look like and i will just do a little bit of advance to say that i think that is actually a key aspect going into nc13 for people to focus on which is that mc13 is the first real reform ministerial conference and the question that is squarely before all of the members of the wto and it is a very big family is what are you looking for, what kind of reforms and improvements are you looking for for the wto and the multilateral trading system. i think that's deeply exciting and that's a marker of the amount of progress that we have

made. you can talk about each other's trade policy and thirdly dispute settlement. all those are broken down over the last ten years or so. the monitoring system reporting and they reporting on their own subsidies and the system has ground to a halt by actions taken by multiple administrations over time. what do you see the value. how will that position going forward? >> certainly. those out in trade were hard on ourselves and hard on each

other. >> i don't think anybody thinks that we are really fun. amongst ourselves i think that there's a certain type of trade but i guess what i would say is this to your question which is going into mc13, we tend to really be dreamers is wto still relevant and broken down and is the multilateral trading system on the road? if you can leave yourself out of trade negotiators and our pat yachts and you look at wto among sister institutions, you look at the world bank and you also look at the un, these are

institutions and this is where the wto standing at the current encarnación happens again in postworld c war ii system. all of these institutions are grappling with the fact that they are showing signs of age. they were born at a time of world order that have done a lot, has been quite success but today in 2023 it is fundamentally different world that we live in than we were in 1945, 1948. and so the question for all of us is one of adaptation, of modernization and of reform. how do we reflect in these institutions the kinds of relationship that is we have with each other andnd the kind f economy and world that we live in right now and i think if you look at it this way, not deeply

in the world of un and the world bank we are adjacent but my reflection would be that there's a very serious reform consciousness, consciousness of need for reform in each of the institutions and if you lack at wto this is the one institution where reform is squarely on the agenda and where we are grappling with the questions of reform extremely robustly. we are having very honest and difficult questions and i think by that measure the reinforcement is how important wto is and how we are actually ahead of the sister institutions and the multilateral and the international framework in terms of grappling with the need of being updated one more item i wanted to make sure to emphasize in terms of the value of the wto as i'm preparing for mc13.

that is a huge part of wto. >> what's the political con census whatca countries want out of the global trading system and how to manifest in wto from your perspective what are the elements of reform, what should those elements of reform should be for the wto? >> great. how can there wto reflect the ft that the member economies look

different just when wto was formed and there are more member which means there's more diversity and complexity in the negotiations and the interaction as that have to happen even amongst the members you have seen evolutions of their -- of their exist answers, right. also very much in our minds and very, very relevant china in 2001, in 1995 china was not a member of the wto. if you look at economic

indicators in 2001 versus china in 2024 you see how immensely china has grown and changed and how different all of our relationships with china have become and then also india it's also an example. adapting and reflecting the needs of the modern-world economy, the aspirations and challenges of all of the countries in the developing world which by the way they are olnot monolithic, there's diversity and nuance within the

developing world. i say if you just look at the dispute settlement piece, one of the primary questions that we are asking and what it should have been doing all along which is helping wto members and the disputes are going to happen all of the time and became a giant litigation -- very, very time intensive and it's all in the wto website. if you look at who uses the

dispute settlement system it's not the membership, it's the very small subset of the membership and so the majority of the wto, dispute settlement.

>> across borders and recent change in that in the wto. congress to legislate. given the fact that the u.s. economy is probably the leader.

advice and guidance to me from when i worked for you and we had a conversation during the transition in your previous job where you raised issues and it's obvious this economy that we live in and i know i'm looking at myself in the screen right here being transmitted out to lots of people over digital infrastructure. our entire lives and certainly our economy have become a digital one, right. what does that mean for trade if the challenge for us in this time period in our collective history to ensure that we are responsive and reflective of reality, what does that mean for what we have called digital

trade? i will take this opportunity to tell a little bit of a story to hope and think that will be relate to believe so many people in the room and online. when we started on these digital provisions in our trade practice i think first fta that had a chapter that started dealing with singapore and we are about to celebrate 20 years of the singapore fta this year. so early 2000's that were negotiating this, it's called the e-commerce tractor and it's the e-commerce chapter in several iterations of fta's going forward, right. and i think that that makes sense if you think about what the digital economy looked like in the early 2000's, it really was about e-commerce. amazon was still a start-up. it was still in early stages where amazon is mostly selling books in late 90's and early

2000's. when we thought about it that way, how does that intersect with trade and the things that we negotiate we rightly and appropriately at the time thought about e-commerce, digital trade provisions as largely facilityive provisions. we want today safeguard the flow of data to facilitate traditional trade transactions. but we thought about it in fairlyd traditional terms as trade facilitation modality. that makes perfect sense but if you fast-forward to where we are today in 2024, one of the things that you realize is that the flow of data, the decisions around where data needs to be stored, how it needs to be

handled has -- takes on much, much different dimensions because over this period of time, in fact, iner the digital economy the data is no longer just about facilitating traditional types of transactions. the data has become the commodity in and of itself. the data is now what has value and the ability to accumulate that data and for vast amounts of data then to be combined with computing power to create things like generative ai and large language models it start to give you a sense, normal trade negotiator that there are much, much bigger equities at stake and what we might be doing in our trade negotiations. it's not just about facilitating trade, it's actually appreciating that the questions that are called around how we

regulate data and how we regulate the companies that accumulate harvest and train in this data is is something that we need to resolve and advance before we can thoughtfully and responsibly engage in trade negotiations to figure out what the limits are in terms of what we should be doing and what the goals are for what we should be doing with our trading partners. i come out of traditional trading goods. exports restraints on raw materials. those are the critical minerals that come out of the ground. this digital conversation is one where i am learning alongside everybody else and alongside our policies makers as well as we peel back the onion and thinking about data, data is something that you're generating, i'm generating when i have my fitbit

i'm generating data 24/7. that is data that i have created that somebody else possesses and someone else is monetizing and trading and -- and -- and manipulating, right. if you look at through the reality of data brokers, the people who grab this data that's all out there and then sells it including moving it across borders, i think what you will learn is sort of what underlies the digital economy and digital exist answers and just thinking about what the rules should be for how that data is handled, who has rights to that data and then the international components about trade security. >> the issue of data has gone beyond trading goods, among other things largely depending on data and now manufacturing

also depending on data. >> so this gives me to talk the about what we did at the wto which i think created a lot of furor and fireworks. for all of you who have been involved in trade negotiations and wto negotiations you know that it is traditionally a text-base exercise and that, you know, everybody goes in flexing their muscles and you're going in and dialing your text to the extreme knowing that what comes out through the negotiations is

going to be somewhere in the middle depending on where it's going to land if it's going the hand. with that said, what we did in october of last year was go to the 3 or 4 provisions one on data flows, one on data localization storage and one on source code and say the united states is and this is trade language, we are withdrawing our attribution so in that text where after every provision you have in parenthesis, all of the countries, wto economies, this is what -- this is where we are putting our chip. we took that, we took the u.s. out of the parenthesis in the 3 provisions and what we said at the time was it is so that we can reconsider our position, the 3 very important issues and we can come back with better

considered, so -- so in terms of what we've done, this still world is operating the way it has been always. we are always lacking out for the equities of the american economy, our stakeholders, companies and also our workers and our small businesses, entrepreneurs, ranchers, et cetera. i will say this if you look around the world in some of the closest trading partners you begin to appreciate how our systems are different and that means that we have different superpowers that we bring to our engagements around the world. if you look at the europeans i think that despite being a very

complex institution that the europeans superpower one of them is regulation. our superpower is not regulating and the area of technology where technology is creating this digital existence it is an area where we know that we have to take steps forward and whether it's through the competition enforcement, whether it's through legislating on privacy, on the responsibility of stakeholders in the world of technology, how technology interacts with our democratic

institutions and it is really important for us to be connected as ustr to the rest of the conversation within the administration in congress and beyond to ensure that what we are doing at the wto, one, makes sense, two, it's consistent and coherent with everything else that we are doing and three, ultimately it's constructive to bringing about a world that that respects freedoms, that, yes, that promotes economic vitality but also isn't blind to the implications of what we are doing on all these other aspects of the interaction of government and the economy. >> one last question and open it up to everybody here and online. one thing that we are increasing doing here and the council is focusing on trade-offs, sort of teeing up big policies issues and saying there are many ways you can go but each one has a trade-off and making the

trade-offs explicits and trade is a great area to talk about trade-offs. we hate being overly dependent on china for basic goods. we also hate inflation and higher costs of living. the actions taken to deal with the fist one will likely exacerbate the second one. when you're out traveling around the country, many others. we are going to become less dependent on china as a result >> the thing that i really love is the decision memo that, will

prepare for ustr and could be a number of decisions and kind of the procons discussion that's inside of the memo and so you always have to be thinking about what the trade-offs are. -- i think on your point derisking, diversification of trade, the clean transition also, i would say this, i think that we can break out a little bit of the -- the trade-off, a little bit of the zero-sum dynamic if instead of just looking at this very moment you make the conversation in each of the areas what we are dealing with is managing a transition that today we know that we have critical dependencies and vulnerabilities. for every sector where we feel

that we are, you know, critically vulnerable to another country and say china in particular, i think that it creates a sense of insecurity that is destabilizing for the world economy and frankly for the world and the flip side, there are things -- there are things that we hold the choke points where, you know, where we flex, we are willing to choke and willing to press on those choke points that it creates anxiety and nervousness in other parts of the world. so where we are today in terms of resilience and diversification in our supply chains is not where we want to be. where we are today in terms of the clean transition, in terms of, you know, future proclimate economy and world is not where we know we need to