Janet Egan, Senior Fellow with the Technology and National Security Program at the Center for a New American Security, Jessica Brandt, Senior Fellow for Technology and National Security at the Council on Foreign Relations, Neil Chilson, Head of AI Policy at Abundance Institute, and Tim Fist, Director of Emerging Technology Policy at the Institute for Progress join Kevin Frazier, the AI Innovation and Law Fellow at the University of Texas School of Law and a Senior Editor at Lawfare for a special version of Scaling Laws.

This episode was recorded just hours after the release of the AI Action Plan. About 180 days ago, President Trump directed his administration to explore ways to achieve AI dominance. His staff has attempted to do just that. This group of AI researchers dives into the plan’s extensive recommendations and explore what may come next.

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Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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In this episode of Scaling Laws, Alan and Kevin discuss the current state of AI growth, focusing on scaling laws, the future of AGI, and the challenges of AI integration into society with Ethan Mollick, Professor of Management at Wharton, specializing in entrepreneurship and innovation. They explore the bottlenecks in AI adoption, particularly the role of interfaces and the uncertainty surrounding AI development. Mollick discusses the transformative potential of AI in various fields, particularly education and medicine, as well as the need for empirical research to understand AI's impact, the importance of adapting teaching methods, and the challenges of cognitive de-skilling.

More of Ethan Mollick's work: https://www.oneusefulthing.org/

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On the inaugural episode of Scaling Laws, co-hosts Kevin Frazier, AI Innovation and Law Fellow at the University of Texas School of Law and a Senior Editor at Law, and Alan Rozenshtein, Professor at Minnesota Law and Research Director at Lawfare, speak with Adam Thierer, a senior fellow for the Technology and Innovation team at the R Street Institute, and Helen Toner, the Director of Strategy and Foundational Research Grants at Georgetown's Center for Security and Emerging Technology (CSET).

They discuss the recent overwhelming defeat in the Senate of a proposed moratorium on state and local regulation of artificial intelligence. The conversation explores the moratorium's journey from its inclusion in a House bill to its ultimate failure, examining the procedural hurdles, the confusing legislative language, and the political maneuvering that led to its demise by a 99-to-1 vote. The group discuss the future of U.S. AI governance, covering the Republican party's fragmentation on tech policy and whether Congress's failure to act is a sign of it being broken or a deliberate policy choice.

Mentioned in this episode:

 “The Continuing Tech Policy Realignment on the Right” by Adam Thierer in Medium

 “1,000 AI Bills: Time for Congress to Get Serious About Preemption” by Kevin Frazier and Adam Thierer in Lawfare

 “Congress Should Preempt State AI Safety Legislation” by Dean W. Ball and Alan Z. Rozenshtein in Lawfare

 "The Coming Techlash Could Kill AI Innovation Before It Helps Anyone" by Kevin Frazier in Reason 

 "Unresolved debates about the future of AI" by Helen Toner in Rising Tide 

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Last week the House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed a bill that would require ByteDance, the Chinese company that owns the popular social media app TikTok, to divest its ownership in the platform or face TikTok being banned in the United States. Although prospects for the bill in the Senate remain uncertain, President Biden has said he will sign the bill if it comes to his desk, and this is the most serious attempt yet to ban the controversial social media app.

Today's podcast is the latest in a series of conversations we've had about TikTok. Matt Perault, the Director of the Center on Technology Policy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, led a conversation with Alan Rozenshtein, Associate Professor of Law at the University of Minnesota and Senior Editor at Lawfare, and Ramya Krishnan, a Senior Staff Attorney at the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University. They talked about the First Amendment implications of a TikTok ban, whether it's a good idea as a policy matter, and how we should think about foreign ownership of platforms more generally.

Disclaimer: Matt's center receives funding from foundations and tech companies, including funding from TikTok.

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Today, we’re bringing you an episode of Arbiters of Truth, our series on the information ecosystem.

On March 18, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Murthy v. Missouri, concerning the potential First Amendment implications of government outreach to social media platforms—what’s sometimes known as jawboning. The case arrived at the Supreme Court with a somewhat shaky evidentiary record, but the legal questions raised by government requests or demands to remove online content are real.

To make sense of it all, Lawfare Senior Editor Quinta Jurecic and Matt Perault, the Director of the Center on Technology Policy at UNC-Chapel Hill, called up Alex Abdo, the Litigation Director of the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University. While the law is unsettled, the Supreme Court seemed skeptical of the plaintiffs’ claims of government censorship. But what is the best way to determine what contacts and government requests are and aren't permissible?

If you’re interested in more, you can read the Knight Institute’s amicus brief in Murthy here and Knight’s series on jawboning—including Perault’s reflections—here.

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In May 2023, Montana passed a new law that would ban the use of TikTok within the state starting on January 1, 2024. But as of today, TikTok is still legal in the state of Montana—thanks to a preliminary injunction issued by a federal district judge, who found that the Montana law likely violated the First Amendment. In Texas, meanwhile, another federal judge recently upheld a more limited ban against the use of TikTok on state-owned devices. What should we make of these rulings, and how should we understand the legal status of efforts to ban TikTok?

We’ve discussed the question of TikTok bans and the First Amendment before on the Lawfare Podcast, when Lawfare Senior Editor Alan Rozenshtein and Matt Perault, Director of the Center on Technology Policy at UNC-Chapel Hill, sat down with Ramya Krishnan, a staff attorney at the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, and Mary-Rose Papandrea, the Samuel Ashe Distinguished Professor of Constitutional Law at the University of North Carolina School of Law. In light of the Montana and Texas rulings, Matt and Lawfare Senior Editor Quinta Jurecic decided to bring the gang back together and talk about where the TikTok bans stand with Ramya and Mary-Rose, on this episode of Arbiters of Truth, our series on the information ecosystem.

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