Reed Hundt

Thirty years ago, digitization, fiber optics, and microprocessors transformed the world. Software turned them into digital cellular and the Internet, lifting one billion people from extreme poverty and enabling us to halve the death toll of COVID compared to the Spanish flu — despite a world four times larger. Today, those same technologies have given rise to artificial intelligence. The question before us: what can we learn from how government handled that earlier revolution?

This essay examines how the national government’s strategy three decades ago shaped the global information environment of today. This will show that humans can use the power of government to do more good than harm. They can win and deserve the trust of the people they are sworn to serve. It is also intended to explain why the lessons of the grand strategy adopted for digital communications three decades ago suggest it is time to create an Artificial Intelligence Commission.

[Commentary] The incoming Trump administration and the new Republican Congress seem interested in providing tax advantages and new debt availability for infrastructure spending. But project developers will need revenue to pay off debt. So the infrastructure has to generate income. To pay back debt and guarantee that infrastructure spending is productive, projects need user fees. The problem is that more than 90% of transportation infrastructure is publicly owned, publicly funded and used for free. Without revenue prospects, private sector developers are not going to enter the business of rebuilding most roads, bridges, tunnels, sewers, water systems, and dams.

On the other hand, almost all 21st century infrastructure is privately owned, funded by users through various fees and charges, and ripe for huge new private spending. To really make America great, the new administration and Congress should make the tax advantages and finance benefits for infrastructure applicable to the 21st century infrastructures of power and communications.

[Reed Hundt is the CEO of Coalition for Green Capital and a former Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission]