Summary

To bolster competition, entrepreneurship, and innovation, the next administration should facilitate business-to-business (B2B) data sharing between startups and data-rich, established companies. Asymmetry in the digital economy is an existing market failure that, if left unchecked will continue to intensify to the detriment of consumer choice and our collective security.

Leveling the playing field requires policy to remove barriers to entry created by data advantages and to promote market competition through increased access to big data. Specifically, we propose that the Small Business Administration’s Office of Investment and Innovation establish a data-sharing program that gives entrepreneurs access to the data they need to improve algorithms underpinning their products and services. This would support a thriving and diverse ecosystem of startups that could in time yield valuable new markets and products.

Summary

Tens of billions of taxpayer dollars are lost every year due to improper payments to the federal government. These improper payments arise from agency and claimant errors as well as outright fraud. Data analytics can help identify errors and fraud, but often only identify improper payments after they have already been issued.

Artificial intelligence (AI) in general—and machine learning (ML) in particular (AI/ML)—could substantially improve the accuracy of federal payment systems. The next administration should launch an initiative to integrate AI/ML into federal agencies’ payment processes. As part of this initiative, the federal government should work extensively with non-federal entities—including commercial firms, nonprofits, and academic institutions—to address major enablers and barriers pertaining to applications of AI/ML in federal payment systems. These include the incidence of false positives and negatives, perceived and actual fairness and bias issues, privacy and security concerns, and the use of ML for predicting the likelihood of future errors and fraud.

Summary

Artificial intelligence is increasingly being used to make decisions about human welfare. Automated decision systems (ADS) administer U.S. social benefits programs—such as unemployment and disability benefits—across local, state, and Federal governments. While ADS have the potential to enable large gains in efficiency, they also run a high risk of reinforcing the class- and race-based inequities of the status quo. Additionally, the use of these systems is not transparent, often leaving individuals with no meaningful recourse after a decision has been made. Individuals may not even know that ADS played a role in the decision-making process.

The Federal Government should take immediate action to promote the transparency and accountability of automated decision systems. Agencies must build internal technical capacity as well as data cultures centered around transparency, accountability, and fairness. The White House should require that agencies using ADS undertake a notice-and-comment process to disclose information about these systems to the public. Finally, in the long-term, Congress must pass comprehensive legislation to implement a single, national standard regulating the use of ADS across sectors and use cases.

Summary

To prevent another medical supply chain breakdown like the one experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic, the Federal Government must create an emergency response plan to activate domestic, local medical supply manufacturing. A national network of small-to-mid-size manufacturers and prototyping labs — a U.S. Prototyping and Manufacturing Reserve — should be formalized and incentivized to act as first responders for emergency innovation and medical supply manufacturing needs.

To properly equip the Reserve, the Federal Government should build a comprehensive library of open source medical and emergency supply “blueprints” — a U.S. Digital Stockpile — that consists of manufacturing requirements to enable distributed local emergency production. Combined, these new national security resources will facilitate rapid local response to both regional disasters and international supply chain disruptions.

Summary

In the last two decades, the digital marketplace has transformed the majority of the economy and the daily lives of billions of people worldwide. This transformation has delivered great gains to consumers and unlocked whole new technological opportunities for society to thrive. However, amidst these gains, palpable consumer harms and anti-competitive behaviors have also become clearer, and the bottom-up innovative dynamism that ushered forth the digital marketplace is increasingly under threat.

The next administration should establish a White House Taskforce focused on promoting digital market competition. This executive memo supports its establishment on day one of the next Presidential term.

Summary

Section 230 has been the subject of bipartisan criticism in Washington, with both President Trump and former Vice President Biden arguing that the controversial law should be revoked. As the election has approached, a flurry of legislative proposals have taken aim at the law.

This paper argues that the Biden-Harris administration should take a more targeted approach, focusing on changes that will deter some of the most harmful forms of speech while also preserving the features of tech platforms that are essential to online expression. Specifically, the next administration should modernize federal criminal law for the digital age to prohibit problematic online speech like voter suppression and incitement to riot, require platforms to comply with court orders to remove illegal content, define what it means for a platform to “develop” content, work with platforms on reporting options that will facilitate individual accountability, and incentivize platforms to share data that will inform future product design and policymaking.

Summary

How can public engagement and transparency at the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) be improved? Congress has wrestled with this question repeatedly over the last several years. While Congress should continue to pursue legislative reform, the next FCC Chair can immediately improve transparency and public debate on pending agency actions by adding a second monthly meeting of the FCC Commissioners.

This proposal outlines a series of actions to introduce a second monthly meeting of the FCC Commissioners. During the additional meeting, FCC staff should present on major items that might be brought before the Commission for a vote in the next several months. This forward-looking monthly meeting gives the public information needed to provide meaningful input to the Commission prior to its decision-making. The meeting would also improve the Commissioners’ own ability to respond to policy recommendations.

Summary

The next leadership team of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) must prioritize restoring the agency’s authority to protect consumers and competition in the broadband market. Under the next administration, FCC leadership should quickly commence a proceeding proposing to reclassify broadband as a “telecommunications service” under Title II of the Communications Act of 1934. This reclassification puts the FCC on the firmest legal ground to

1. Restore or strengthen the 2015 network neutrality rules that prohibit providers of broadband Internet access from blocking, throttling, or otherwise discriminating against certain Internet traffic
2. Fund broadband through the FCC’s four universal service programs
3. Protect consumers from fraud and privacy violations
4. Promote broadband competition, and
5. Protect public safety.

FCC leadership should simultaneously work with Congress to develop legislation to codify this authority as law, thereby protecting against potential future reversals.

Summary

The Biden-Harris Administration should launch a concerted broadband data-collection and analysis effort to support smart, timely, and informed decision-making by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and other agencies that work on broadband, such as the Rural Utilities Service. Specifically, the FCC should collect (or work with others to collect) comprehensive data on the following eight indicators:

1. Broadband deployment
2. Broadband adoption
3. Broadband performance
4. Competition
5. Pricing
6. Anchor institutions
7. Specialized networks
8. International benchmarks

These data should be centralized on a “broadband data dashboard” to support informed decision-making by the FCC as well as analysis and application by stakeholders in government and industry as well as the general public. The dashboard would also support the FCC in developing and assessing progress towards clear, quantifiable goals for each indicator.

Summary

Semiconductor integrated circuits (ICs) will continue to play an increasingly significant role in society as smart phones, internet-of-things (IoT) devices, artificial intelligence, autonomous vehicles, 5G communications, and other vastly interconnected technologies redefine many facets of daily life in the United States. The interconnectedness of these technologies presents novel opportunities for adversaries to exploit these systems for financial or strategic gain. The present geopolitical difficulties between China and the US, coupled with supply chain interruptions associated with the COVID-19 pandemic have made concerns about the robustness of the IC supply chain especially germane. In particular, China’s enormous investment in expanding its production capacity of advanced ICs is of grave concern. Against this landscape, there is an exciting opportunity for the next administration to develop a sophisticated American IC security infrastructure by launching a National Secure Electronics Initiative (NSEI). The NSEI will set a goal of achieving levels of security for electronic hardware in defense and commercial sectors at the design, manufacturing, and deployment stages with quantifiable strength comparable to the protections available at the software and data level, such as the Advanced Encryption Standards (AES).

Through NSEI, the next administration will ensure that not only defense, but also municipal and commercial supply chain processes, data, toolsets, key personnel, and facilities are secured against penetration by external threats or subversion by internal threats. The NSEI will integrate defense efforts and advancements with the commercial and municipal sectors by developing a more robust innovation pipeline through investments in early stage research, working across industry, government, and academia to develop a comprehensive set of security metrics, and fully leveraging the resources and expertise of other government agencies beyond those tied to defense. Making the United States a pioneer of such efforts would also represent a significant value add for domestic design and manufacture of electronic devices.

To reach these goals, the federal government should undertake a comprehensive agenda, led by the White House via the NSEI, to greatly expand existing efforts in the secure microelectronics space, such as the DoD Trusted and Assured Microelectronics (T&AM) program, and extend those efforts to better include the commercial and municipal sectors in addition to defense. The NSEI should complement but not depend upon other potential parallel efforts in this space. For example, two pieces of legislation, the CHIPS for America Act and American Foundries Act of 2020, have recommended the expansion of onshore capacity in advanced node ICs. The Semiconductor Industry Association has made similar recommendations and provided estimates for the potential impact of either $20B or $50B worth of federal investment in this space. The technologies developed under the NSEI would improve electronic security regardless of where the devices were manufactured, but would benefit from an expansion in domestic capacity. This is critical because although an increase in US manufacturing of advanced ICs is desirable on its own merits, the security of defense, consumer, and municipal electronics should not hinge on such developments.

Accomplishing the goals outlined below will secure the nation’s place at the forefront of global microelectronics security. The consequences of inaction may lead to more powerful cyber-attacks (e.g. rising attacks on health or financial infrastructure, military hardware subversion by adversarial states) on personal data, infrastructure, or vulnerable defense targets.

Summary

The Biden-Harris Administration should aim to make the United States a world leader in privacy-preserving machine learning (PPML), a collection of new artificial intelligence (AI) techniques capable of providing the benefits of machine learning while minimizing data-privacy concerns. By some estimates, improvements to the speed, accuracy, and scale of AI could augment global GDP by 14%, or $15.7 trillion, by 2030. Yet Americans fear that expansion of AI will have moderate to severe negative consequences. They are particularly concerned about the privacy implications of how companies and agencies use personal data to generate new developments. To assuage these concerns, this proposal recommends targeted initiatives for the Biden-Harris Administration to bring PPML techniques to maturity, including

1. Investing in PPML research and development.
2. Identifying compelling opportunities to apply PPML techniques at the federal level.
3. Creating frameworks and technical standards to facilitate wider deployment of PPML techniques.

Summary

The Biden-Harris Administration should pursue a set of policies aimed at maximizing productive use of the radio spectrum, a key public good that can be used to create economic and social value. These policies should include adjustments to the institutions that manage the nation’s spectrum; a redefinition of spectrum rights and responsibilities enjoyed by companies that use the spectrum; and options for using the economic value created by spectrum auctions to address persistent public problems.