History Lessons

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? I have three parts: mistakes to avoid, lessons to remember, and what could go wrong. The communications revolution of thirty years ago was built by a government willing to be creative, bipartisan, and forward-looking. Miranda’s words in Shakespeare’s Tempest still ring true: “O brave new world.” The wonders of AI spring from human ingenuity. Let’s summon the same ingenuity in government to make sure everyone benefits.

[Reed Hundt is an American attorney, author, and former government official best known for his transformative tenure as the Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) from 1993 to 1997.]