the darpa challenge.hey said at the time that whoever could build a car that could drive itself from los angeles to las vegas would win a million dollars. about a handful of students and i built a car that would drive the course. emily: and you did. sebastian: this has to be slightly faster than anybody else. which gave us the first prize. emily: i think that is called winning. i rode in the self driving car about four years ago. sebastian: you remember. emily: how far has it come since then? sebastian: at this point, i confidently tell you it drives better than me. if you were to drive with me, then you would beg me for the car to take over because it keeps the lane much better, it brakes more gently. it anticipates things much faster than i can. emily: would you drive in a self driving car with your family across the country? sebastian: i have done this many times. i have a vacation time in lake tahoe and i've taken my family up many times. of course, i am behind the wheel as a safety mechanism. emily:

can i ask a question about darpa. you were both in and out. to what john and arati were saying, you might think the rate of diffusion of ideas that are generated is slowing down. the private sector is not making the most of it. we were really worried about whether there is enough to all use to spill over. now we believe there's a huge amount of spillover, that is the recipient, the catcher not there to catch? >> we think all the time about how technologies will move into the world. some are very specific military systems and they will only through dod. but a number of the enabling technologies we talked about today, but also the information technology duty pad undergraduate students going off in starting new companies are established companies adopting names i've basic research. fundamentally at some level the decision has to be made around commercial opportunities. there was a time in the history when we were scaling the arpanet and the internet in this huge number of amazing companies was thinning out mostly from the university research we w

so that says in terms of what whatever darpa happens to be doing it's certainly not showing up in the productivity statistics in 2003. >> i really have to caution you. darpa is 2% of federal spending and r&d. >> i think i'll make the point that i think andrew can make is that a lot of people dispute the measurement of productivity from these kind of technology. we heard this morning about how the retail sector may have not shown any productivity increase because you put in the machine. i would say that the quality of locating the product you want at the price you want has really improved. so the quality of the shops experience, the productivity as measured by quality may be entirely missing from the productivity numbers. so we really have a problem here. >> productivity has been growing. so that statement this morning was off base. >> all right. >> and in that case it was -- this is related in a good way to the decline of mom and pops. the shifts away has been very good for the retail trade sector. >> so my point whether the retail sector was the right one to use or not. do you think

we have to hear the head of darpa a very well-known source of technological innovation in the unitedthat eloquently in the first panel. the other is these technologies are not that important. we are not doing major renovation. we are not doing major innovation in transportation and energy. nothing similar to electrification or telephonic communication. what is the big deal? i don't think we have a better person to talk about these pessimistic views of technology coming from the economics community and your sense of where the big technological changes are coming from and is that all i.t. and software. >> that is very much what i love to talk about. let me first say how much i appreciate the chance to participate in the dialog, the work you and eric have done on the hamilton project. we are talking about unraveling a complicated set of linkages between technology and work and it is of course what is important for our values and our future. i really think it's terrific. i want to take the conversation in a different direction and talk about technology itself. the way technology has beco

darpa is 2% of federal spending in r & d. please be careful. [laughter] laura: i will make the point which i think and you can make. and the measurement of productivity from these kinds of activity -- activities. we heard this morning that the retail sector may not have shown any productivity increase because -- the quality of locating the product you want at the price you want has really improved. so the quality of the shopping experience, the productivity of the shopping experience as measured by quality may be entirely missing from the productivity numbers. john: productivity has been growing in the retail sector. that statement this morning was off base. in that case, it is related in a good way to the decline of mom and pops. the shift away from mom and pop to walmart has been good for the sector. -- for the retail trade sector. laura: whether the retail sector was the right one to use or not wasn't -- is, do you think that given the nature of the technological changes we're going through that this won't -- the measurable on terms of outpu

of a deadly virus to make it easier to effect humans and it is happening around universities like darpad while researchers in places like syria are suspected of stockpiling strains. and defense one looks at how science will need to prevent itself. and joining us now patrick tucker. patrick you open the piece about talking about a 2012 study out of wisconsin where researchers took bird flu and manipulated it and took it easier to transmit it through humans. >> this is a gain of function research where you are looking at a deadly pathogen and figuring out exactly that. what could happen to make it more deadly. that is to say it is gaining the function of lethality. at the time at the university of wisconsin and the researchers of netherlands undertook the study they had the full backing of the united states government and a bunch of different grants but when the results were published and they showed that changing the protein profile you could get this virus to exist and reproduce in the lungs of mammals, moving away from birds, all of a sudden it was a tremendous controversy and they pla

probiker, director of the defense advanced research agency known to all of us as darpa. the moderator will be laura tyson, professor of business administration economics at the berkeley haas school of business and member of the advisory council of the hamilton project. let me close by extending particular thanks to melissa carney, who i already mentioned, our director, kristin mcintosh, our managing director, and brad hirschbine, the visiting fellow with the hamilton project providing the intellectual construct for this session and putting together truly a remarkable program. let me thank the members of the staff of the hamilton project whose thoughtful hard work is central to everything we do at our project. with that, let me turn the podium over to roger altman. roger. >> morning, everyone. i'll be real brief. i think that the upcoming framing remarks and the two panels we're about to have are going to fit anyone's description of provocative. i, too, want to thank melissa and kristen and the entire hamilton staff for organizing an event as rich as this and as substanti

defense wide science and technology efforts such as the defense advanced research project agency or darpa and the military service laboratories. special operations forces cyber command portion of the national security agency and our cyber forces across the department of defense and military services. and many other programs and activities that deal with evolving and emerging threats from the weapons of mass destruction to an expansionist russia to the rise of the islamic state of iraq in the levant, isil or daesh. mr. chairman the emerging threats in subcommittee capabilities subcommittee has been active in conducting oversight in all of these important areas, and bismark represents a comprehensive and bipartisan product that all members can be proud of. it is worth noting that much of the oversight conducted by this subcommittee is classified and takes place behind closed doors where we review everything current on sensitive activity and the programs involving the department of defense intelligence capabilities of special operation forces and cyber forces. i am grateful members of the su

nasa and darpa and the national science foundation all rolled into one. and then they made him was not a member of the communist party a member of the state council. and made him minister of science and technology, and that was just in unprecedented thing. it had not happened for 40 years that someone who is not a member of the communist party had been a member of the state council. and he is still driving this electrification from a central level. >> and so the program the leapfrog hasn't happened yet. i mean, i think as you read the great race you have the sense that china started very strong and has picked up the pace. would have been? >> they put put any numbers among them an interest program and it was an enormous amount of enthusiasm and a lot of propaganda that underpinned china's program. that's what the exhibit was. it was the chinese government putting a lot of pressure on to demonstrate to the world what china's system of the future was going to look like. the problem is that they really got the incentives wrong. it couldn't be much more oppose

darpa distinction between people and the kinds of things that quarter was just discussing, but do youhink we did better or worse than you would've anticipated? is there anything that surprise you we can learn from that we can think about in terms of preparing for biological threats? >> would you like to go first? >> who wants to go first? >> this speaks to the coordination problem. >> i will give an anecdote from the corporate sector. we are a multinational. we have people that were in western africa at the time performing things for infrastructure support. we worked with government partners. we initiated a quick indication campaign. we do look at how we're going to move summit if we had someone that was ill, which is not a private concern. it's one that has to the coordination between the private sector and the government accepting the individual coming back for care. what i would say is i think it was regional to say that across the board what we saw was mixed results. and that's there. i think if i were going to say if there's anything i would look at in terms of changing because i

the distinguished university professor in maryland the research project agency known to all of us as darpad a member of the advisory council on the hamilton project. but we close by extending the particular thanks to melissa who i have already mentioned, the director kristen mcintosh, the managing director come and brad the visiting fellow at the hamilton project providing the intellectual constructs for the session and putting together what is a workable program. let me also thank the member of the staff for everything we do projects with that let me turn the podium over to roger altman. good morning everyone. i will be brief. i think that the upcoming framing remarks and the panels that we are about to have our going to fit anyone's description of provocative and i want to thank the entire hamilton staffer once again organizing an event as rich as this and as substantive as this. we are going to start with framing remarks. they are both professors at mit and the school of management. and the principle research scientist at mit and in the field of research is the impact of digital technol

has funding technical assistance and market readiness and moddled after the highly defense agency or darpa which has ground-breaking inventions, most notably, the internet itself. a key element of both agencies is that managers are limited to fixed term so new blood revitalizes. we must not weaken those programs that are vital to our economic future and national security. and it is such an agency. even if we can't make it what the president has called for, we don't need to hinder an agency that is pointing the way to energy-secure future. it's an economic imperative and health concern and environmental necessity. investing wisely in this type of research is the direction we should be going on as a nation. we want to lead the energy revolution and don't want to see this go to china. if we are serious about staying at the forefront, we must invest in the cutting-edge work. by providing the funding i'm recommending today, we will send a clear signal to remain world leaders. i urge the adoption of this amendment and i yield back. the chair: the gentleman yields back the balance of his time. fo