Appeared originally in Lawfare, November, 2020

Code is law. Lawrence Lessig’s 1999 assertion was that in a digital world, programmers were scripting a values system into their technology, often in a fit of absent-mindedness. Twenty years later, the U.S. and Europe are living in the geopolitical landscape those early pioneers created. One-time plucky startups have grown into supergiants vacuuming up ever more data and market share. Artificial intelligence (AI) is becoming both an enabler for social well-being and an instrument of authoritarian control. Emerging technologies are transforming militaries, creating new battlefields and changing the nature of warfare. U.S. and Chinese officials crisscross the world in a geostrategic great game for 5G dominance. And social media has become a vector for bad actors—including illiberal states like Russia and China—to disrupt and degrade democracies. In 2020, code is power.

The coronavirus has accelerated these trends. The pandemic has fueled data processing in contact-tracing apps; exposed vulnerabilities in supply chains; created new dependencies in classrooms and boardrooms on video communications technologies; and powered a spike in anti-vaxxer disinformation, QAnon conspiracy theories and radicalization.

Full article appears in the January/February 2021 issue of Foreign Affairs

Among the many transformations taking place in the U.S. economy, none is more salient than the growth of gigantic Internet platforms. Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google, and Twitter, already powerful before the COVID-19 pandemic, have become even more so during it, as so much of everyday life moves online. As convenient as their technology is, the emergence of such dominant corporations should ring alarm bells—not just because they hold so much economic power but also because they wield so much control over political communication. These behemoths now dominate the dissemination of information and the coordination of political mobilization. That poses unique threats to a well-functioning democracy. 

The internet economy has produced digital platforms of enormous economic and social significance. These platforms—specifically, Google, Facebook, Amazon, Twitter, and Apple—now play central roles in how millions of Americans obtain information, spend their money, communicate with fellow citizens, and earn their livelihoods. Their reach is also felt globally, extending to many countries around the world. They have amassed the economic, social, and political influence that very few private entities have ever obtained previously. Accordingly, they demand careful consideration from American policymakers, who should soberly assess whether the nation’s current laws and regulatory institutions are adequately equipped to protect Americans against potential abuses by platform companies.

The Program on Democracy and the Internet at Stanford University convened a working group in January 2020 to consider the scale, scope, and power exhibited by the digital platforms, study the potential harms they cause, and, if appropriate, recommend remedial policies. The group included a diverse and interdisciplinary group of scholars, some of whom had spent many years dealing with antitrust and technology issues.

THE IMMEDIATE AFTERMATH OF ELECTION DAY 2020 offers lessons about the state of American democracy as well as technology’s influence on voters, the voting process, and democratic institutions. Whatever the outcome of an election, and despite a polarized society, it is clear that all Americans share a common stake in protecting the integrity and independence of the administration of elections, the declaration of winners and losers, and a peaceful transition of power. Yet other questions persist: How have disinformation campaigns, whether domestic or foreign, affected the electoral process? And what does the future hold in terms of a tech agenda?

ANTITRUST AND PRIVACY CONCERNS are two of the most high-profile topics on the tech policy agenda. Checks and balances to counteract the power of companies such as Google, Amazon, and Facebook are under consideration in Congress, though a polarized political environment is a hindrance. But a domestic approach to tech policy will be insufficient, as the users of the large American tech companies are predominantly outside the United States. We need to point the way toward a transnational policy effort that puts democratic principles and basic human rights above the commercial interests of these private companies.

These issues are central to the eight-week Stanford University course, “Technology and the 2020 Election: How Silicon Valley Technologies Affect Elections and Shape Democracy.” The joint class for Stanford students and Stanford’s Continuing Studies Community enrolls a cross-generational population of more than 400 students from around the world.

POPULAR CULTURE HAS ENVISIONED SOCIETIES of intelligent machines for generations, with Alan Turing notably foreseeing the need for a test to distinguish machines from humans in 1950. Now, advances in artificial intelligence that promise to make creating convincing fake multimedia content like video, images, or audio relatively easy for many. Unfortunately, this will include sophisticated bots with supercharged self-improvement abilities that are capable of generating more dynamic fakes than anything seen before.

In our paper “How Relevant is the Turing Test in the Age of Sophisbots,” we argue that society is on the brink of an AI-driven technology that can simulate many of the most important hallmarks of human behavior. As the variety and scale of these so called “deepfakes” expands, they will likely be able to simulate human behavior so effectively and they will operate in such a dynamic manner that they will increasingly pass Turing’s test. 

IN 2016 WE LEARNED ABOUT EFFORTS BY FOREIGN ACTORS to interfere in the U.S. election by injecting misinformation and disinformation into public discourse on social media. False events and personas added to the polarization and manipulation of voters.

The 2020 election is marked by similar efforts, though this time the actors are domestic as well as foreign. What do we do know about people with deceptive or malicious agendas trying to influence citizens ahead of elections, to degrade democracy and sow distrust in the election results, or to spread confusion about science and facts more generally through our information systems?