Tom Wheeler

The internet revolution was accompanied by a digital divide. Now, the artificial intelligence revolution threatens a token divide. Access to the internet opened new possibilities for everyone. The eighth grader doing her homework and the local business serving its customers both benefited. Broadband connections gave them information. Now, AI offers them intelligence. Tokens are the unit through which intelligence is organized, measured, and sold. Access to tokens governs access to intelligence.

The first 19 months of the Trump Federal Communications Commission have changed the nature of the agency. For most of its history, the FCC was a policy-driven body existing in an inevitably political environment. Under the Trump administration, it has become a politics-driven agency employing policy as an instrument.

Artificial intelligence (AI) promises to find its way into every corner of our digital lives. The headlines focus on ever-bigger models, but the future will be determined by applications built on those models. Who builds those applications—the ones that will reshape medicine, education, software development, and mundane back-end enterprise services—has not yet been decided. Whether future applications will be determined by oligopolists or entrepreneurs depends on who controls the infrastructure those applications need.

In a raw exercise of leveraging public trust for political gain, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr, at the behest of President Trump, is forcing America’s broadcasters to choose between free speech and their business interests. It is a bad business deal and an even worse deal for democracy.

On March 20, the Trump White House released its National Policy Framework for Artificial Intelligence. It is filled with worthy aspirations such as protecting children, promoting innovation, and ensuring American leadership. But it sidesteps the most important question in AI governance: Who is in charge of those in charge?

March 10, 2026, marks the 150th anniversary of Alexander Graham Bell’s first telephone call. His words—“Mr. Watson, come here; I want to see you.”—were simple but launched a revolution in human connectivity.

The last time Congress attempted to legislate in the midst of a technology transition was the Telecommunications Act of 1996, signed into law by President Clinton on Feb. 8, 1996. The new law updated the Communications Act of 1934. A 30-year look back can help inform today’s discussion about a national policy for the destabilizing effects of artificial intelligence. Thirty years ago, the destabilizing event was the shift from analog to digital technology.

The global market for artificial intelligence (AI) is taking shape at breathtaking speed—and with remarkably few constraints. Vast new data centers are being financed as if they were shopping centers.

As former chairmen of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC)—one appointed by a Democrat, the other by a Republican—we have seen firsthand how the agency operates when it is guided by its mission to uphold the public interest. But in just over two months, President Donald Trump and his handpicked FCC Chair Brendan Carr have upended 90 years of precedent and congressional mandates to transform the agency into a blatantly partisan tool. Instead of acting as an independent regulator, the FCC is being weaponized for political retribution under the guise of protecting the First Amendment.

The first few weeks of the second Trump administration have combined the “shock and awe” of the 2003 invasion of Iraq with the Silicon Valley mantra “move fast and break things.” The shock treatment distracted attention from how President Trump and agencies of government such as the Federal Communications Commission are moving fast to break three foundational principles