Wired for the future.
Dave Bittner: Hello, everyone. And welcome to "Caveat", N2K CyberWire's privacy, surveillance, law, and policy podcast. I'm Dave Bittner, and joining me is my co-host, Ben Yelin, from the University of Maryland Center for Cyber Health and Hazard Strategies. Hey there, Ben.
Ben Yelin: Hello, Dave.
Dave Bittner: On today's show, Ben and I are joined once again by our N2K CyberWire colleague, Ethan Cook, sharing his insights after attending the State of the Net Conference. While this show covers legal topics, and Ben is a lawyer, the views expressed do not constitute legal advice. For official legal advice on any of the topics we cover, please contact your attorney. [ Music ] All right. So, Ben, before we welcome Ethan to the show, we did get a little bit of follow-up.
Ben Yelin: Ooh, fan mail.
Dave Bittner: Well, let's not be hasty. [laughter]
Ben Yelin: All right, all right. Let's see what we got.
Dave Bittner: So this is from a longtime friend of the show, who is also a former federal law enforcement officer, who prefers to be anonymous, which we will respect. But I do know who this person is, and they are legit. They wrote in, in response to our conversation about types of subpoenas, wrote in and said, "Administrative subpoenas serve the valuable purpose of getting simple subscriber info without having to bog down the grand jury system or even waste a district court judge's time getting a court order for something that simple. It has often provided quick, easy, lawful wins that, at least in my case, took some bad hombres off the streets. I make no other direct comment other than to note that if there's one thing I learned from my many years actually in the courtroom environment, is that there's always certainly more to the story. The truth lies somewhere between, and not necessarily in the middle."
Ben Yelin: I, first of all, I completely agree with the sentiment, and there are always multiple sides to the story. Administrative subpoenas serve a very useful purpose. Obviously, if you're going to bust into somebody's house or arrest somebody, you want to have that judicial review, the warrant process, in front of a neutral, detached magistrate. Generally, when we're just talking about things like subscriber records, as long as you have a reasonable suspicion, an administrative subpoena is proper and easy. I think, and maybe we'll talk about this in future episodes, there's the potential that these subpoenas can be abused. If there are too many given to some of these companies, if some of these companies feel coerced into complying with them, and if you get a million subpoenas and, you know, 10 people have the resources to file motions to quash the subpoena, sometimes the government will just be like, fine, we'll give up on those 10 cases because we don't want to set a precedent that these are illegal subpoenas. And we'll take the rest of the 990-some-odd thousand subpoenas that we've issued.
Dave Bittner: So you agree with our listener that they absolutely have their place.
Ben Yelin: Totally. Absolutely have their place. I think it would be overly burdensome on law enforcement if you had to get a warrant for things like subscriber records. You know, it does get complicated because a Carpenter. When we're talking about things like location data, that is no longer acceptable under an administrative subpoena. But if it's other types of subscriber records, then it is. But yeah, it would not make sense to require a warrant for those types of records, especially if you're trying to conduct an ongoing investigation. But sometimes agencies can be a little overzealous. I think we're seeing that in a couple of agencies right now, so preview of coming attractions.
Dave Bittner: [laughter] Right. Well, again, thanks to our listener for writing in, and of course, we would love to hear from you. If there's something you'd like us to share on the show, please do email us. It's caveat@n2k.com. All right, well, let's welcome Ethan Cook to our show. He is one of our colleagues here at N2K CyberWire. And he writes the "Caveat" newsletter along with our CyberWire Pro Business Brief. Ethan, welcome back.
Ethan Cook: Good to be back, guys.
Dave Bittner: So you recently attended a conference here. It was the State of the Net Conference. Do I have that right?
Ethan Cook: Yes. State of the Net.
Dave Bittner: Tell us about it.
Ethan Cook: Yeah. So this was my first State of the Net, but for those who don't have the background, State of the Net has been going on for many, many years now. And it is a bipartisan conference where they bring in tech leadership from private industry. They bring in congressional leadership and federal agency leadership in to talk about the State of the Net. And they talk about what are the pressing issues that are coming on the horizon? What are the pressing issues right now? And the topics can be anywhere, at least from this year, for a purpose, obviously, AI was a big one. And it ranged from AI in terms of energy, electricity infrastructure, to AI accountability and sovereignty, who has the rights to control AI, etc., all the way from other important laws, such as broadband and BEAD and the programs involving getting internet to everyone. So it's a wide swath of topics.
Dave Bittner: How is the conference organized here? Is it mostly individual speakers? Are there roundtables or panels?
Ethan Cook: Yeah, it's a mix. So you have individual speakers slash, I would say, interview styles where it's one-on-one and it's more of an opportunity, such as Congresswoman April McClain Delaney, who I believe is a Maryland rep.
Dave Bittner: Maryland's own, yeah.
Ethan Cook: Yeah. She was interviewed by a reporter. And then you had Commissioner Anna Gomez from the FCC, who went up and gave a speech. You had former legislators do the same thing. And then you had a series of roundtables, three rounds over the course of the day, that were picking topics. Now, this was the little pet peeve of mine because the topics were so good on multiple occasions that I had to pick between two very good ones. And I unfortunately was like, oh, the cybersecurity panel was also really cool. But 30 years of broadband competition and what that looks like is also interesting.
Dave Bittner: Right.
Ethan Cook: So how do I pick? Luckily, they've uploaded it all to YouTube for anyone who is interested.
Dave Bittner: Okay. So bring us some of the key takeaways for you. And what were some of the things that really caught your attention there?
Ethan Cook: Yeah, so the three panels I attended were 30 Years of Broadband Competition, The Future of AI Infrastructure, specifically looking at securing energy and how do we build out that stability, and lastly, Sovereign AI, and who has the rights to legislate that, and not just within the US, but on a global stage. And all of these were incredibly great conversations. I think, you know, starting with the last one I went to, which was Sovereign AI, I really wanted to get Ben's thoughts on some of this because there was a big conversation about the legality surrounding AI and who owns the rights to it. So --
Ben Yelin: I knew this was going to be the first topic of those three topics. [laughter] So I was like, ah, definitely. So was it about like which level of government should be regulating AI? Was there talk on preemption, for example? Was it more about like who is legally responsible for AI development or the impacts of generative AI or something like that?
Ethan Cook: Yeah, so it was kind of a wide swath, touching a little bit on all of these conversations. So one of the three -- You know, they define three key factors. And they emphasize that it's very gray right now with AI because we don't have a general consensus. They actually akin this to early cyber days where, you know, when cybersecurity was just becoming a thing in its proto stages, everyone really didn't -- you know, it was the wild west. Everyone really didn't know how to define cyber and what do you mean by cyberspace? What do you mean by data, etc.? Now we have more concrete definitions, but those early days, we did not. And that is a re-occurring theme here. They defined, you know, AI as one, where is the actual data center? Who is it impacting? What is the IP that it is using, and how will it be using that IP, whether it is within a company or if it's processing personal data? And lastly, who is actually the person in charge of it? Maybe not where it's located, but is it a private company? Is it a, you know, one of these massive AI companies? Is it the government owning it? And these are the kind of three key factors for trying to determine the sovereignty of AI. And I'm wondering your thoughts on that and kind of the conflicts that could emerge on that one.
Ben Yelin: Yeah, I mean, I think the last one is something that really mystifies me. And it's a question that we have to answer. Because there's, at some point, there's going to be an AI agent or actor that commits a crime or commits some type of civil offense. And we want, just for fairness purposes, to have some accountability. But if these agents are acting somewhat independently or are straying far from the instructions of their creators, then that's going to be a really difficult legal question to answer. And then it's like that kind of opens up the meta more broader questions about is AI something that should be publicly regulated because the public has such a distinct interest in it? Since we are providing support from the federal government for things like data center development, does that mean we have a stake in these companies, or is it the companies that develop them? And if it's the companies, are they willing to accept the risks while reaping the benefits? So there's going to be a lot of accumulation of capital to a very small number of companies. And they're really going to enjoy that part. But are they going to also accept being responsible for the downstream effects of the tools they've created in terms of legal liability and also just kind of moral and ethical liability if there are things like mass layoffs? I'm not saying any of this is going to happen. But it's just, in terms of assigning responsibility, I think those are some really, really interesting questions that are unresolved at this point.
Dave Bittner: I'm curious, you know, you mentioned that there was opinion that it's very much like the beginning of the internet. And I think policy-wise, it was very much hands-off in the early days of the internet. And we can argue whether or not -- how that turned out, you know, whether or not that is ultimately a good thing for us, for society. So I'm curious, like were there conversations about that? Do we need to get ahead of these things? Or do we need to sit back and see how they play out?
Ethan Cook: Yeah, so there were two trends of thoughts from the panelists. The first was bringing up the EU's AI Act and how it has been a little overzealous in its regulation to both the detriment of the economy within the EU, where you see a lot of AI companies only just now starting to dip their toes in as they previously had the mindset of this a very overly broad law, and a lot of these definitions are kind of vague, which could impact us, could not impact us. So we're going to let someone else test this water out until we figure this out. And we see the EU pulling back on some of its AI laws now and pulling back on some of its more harsh measures and having worked with AI companies to kind of, I think, clear up some of these definitions. But they also emphasize the need to not kind of let the reins, you know, take themselves, you know, let the wheel guide itself. Because they mentioned the role, at least at an international level, of both good-faith and bad-faith actors. Good-faith actors being the people who are sitting out, saying, let's develop standards, global cooperation. To Ben's point, let's define who is responsible for this. Is it a governmental actor? Is it a -- You know, if OpenAI or, you know, if, you know, Anthropic, or name the company has an agent that goes crazy in Africa, is that a US problem? Is that a company problem? Let's define these standards and hold people accountable, right, as a uniform group. And then you have the bad-faith actors who are of the mindset of they akin to kind of two ways, which is either, A, these authoritarian regimes that are, you know, kind of shut the doors. We're just going to do whatever we want in our own space, and no one can tell us what to do, even though their implications could have global ramifications for their AI decisions. Or on the second line, they are actively trying to negatively impact the standard process in a way that benefits their own. They akin that to an example where China was attempting to implement the assist -- adjust laws to favor what they called actually LAWS, which were lethal autonomous weapon systems, where China was attempting to get ahead of the curve, and they were taking it as a PR, right? Like, look at us. We're regulating these weapons. We're trying to get ahead of it and, you know, take that easy win. But they created these rules in such a way that it didn't include any of their lethal autonomous weapon systems. You know, let's, oh, we're going to regulate, we're going to regulate these specific things. But by the way, our specific things are not in that definition. So we don't have to abide by this. But we still abide the win because we were here and technically, we signed on to this, even though it has no impact on us. Which I thought that was a really interesting way to phrase or to characterize this question of sovereignty and how we control it. I'm curious on both of your thoughts, because obviously, you were there when AI was -- both of you were there for that whole AI era -- or sorry -- for that internet era, where that was kind of more of a wild west, and how this new world is kind of shaking that up.
Ben Yelin: I mean, I see it going through a similar process. I guess there are two views that I'm kind of unsure where I am on both of them. There's one view that this is like, I guess, the simplest way to put it is this is normal technological innovation. And just like the internet before it, just like the advents of computing generally, like the process is going to be linear. There's going to be some job displacement. There's going to be some macro changes that take a little bit of time to materialize. But we'll look back in 30 years and say like this was a bit of a revolution. That's kind of the internet model. The other model is like the Elon Musk slash AI Silicon Valley view that this is so game-changing that in 10 years, we're not going to need money as currency because we're all going to be so rich. And nobody is going to need jobs since AI can do both white-collar and blue-collar work. I think so much of what happens depends on where we settle on that divide. Like, is this game changing enough that life as we know it is going to be completely different? I think sometimes people in Silicon Valley get a little bit carried away with that view, at least in my thinking. And there's resistance in the rest of the world to AI and to AI tools. And a lot of white-collar workplaces are just not ready, even with good use cases, to accept that AI is going to take over. And I think like until we have kind of a consensus answer that it's one of those two things, that's going to guide the way we regulate AI. Like, are we going to handle it like we did the internet starting in the late 1990s and 2000s, where it was largely the wild west, and then we started to rein it in a little bit, you know, to protect health and safety, to keep smut away from kids, that sort of thing, but we still largely let it flourish and evolve? Or is it something where it's going to become so ubiquitous and out of control that we need to be more active in terms of regulation? [ Music ]
Dave Bittner: You mentioned sovereignty. I think it's a very interesting moment in that, so far, looking back from the dawn of the internet through today, we've been dominated by US companies.
Ethan Cook: Mm-hm.
Dave Bittner: And now we see, because of the state of things in the world, that many nations are pulling back from that. They're saying, we don't want our data controlled by Microsoft. We don't want our data controlled by Amazon or any of the big players. And so they're bringing things local. They're building their own tools. They're building their own AI models. And so this kind of assumption that the US would lead the way but also be the infrastructure for everyone, I think, is shifting. And that's going to be interesting to see how that plays out if we're not the default that we used to be.
Ethan Cook: Yeah, it's funny, both of you bring up points that were also brought up on that conversation of that being what is the US's role in AI for the next 20, 30 years in terms of leading the global way? Is that something that they maintain, control, wane, as well as for, you know, AI? I think there's a, we kind of talked about this, we touched on it, but they brought it up in a specific point, which is, will AI be bigger than the internet? And, you know, you can interpret that question a lot of ways. The panel interpreted it as, is it going to be bigger, literally? Is it going to be bigger impact? Is it going to be bigger in terms of cultural impact? What is that kind of -- how do you measure that? But pivoting to one of the other panels, they also brought up -- There was another one that I attended was The Future of AI Infrastructure, specifically looking at that energy component, which I think is a semi-talked about, but also semi-overlooked, as we all kind of use AI, but we don't really, in the moment, process the energy needs that are being demanded.
Ben Yelin: That's why you should never say please to your AI. Every word --
Ethan Cook: Yes.
Ben Yelin: -- is a waste of energy.
Dave Bittner: Every word you use, a baby polar bear dies.
Ben Yelin: I feel so bad, but I'll just be like -- I'll just give it very direct demands and not say please.
Dave Bittner: Okay.
Ethan Cook: Yeah. I feel terrible when I'm telling this nice little chatbot to, you know, to just edit this, do this.
Ben Yelin: Yeah. Especially when they're so nice to us. They're always telling me that I have great questions.
Ethan Cook: Exactly. So they talked about kind of the energy needs and how this is impacting. So this one was a bit of a doozy. You had a clean-energy person on there. You had Google attending. You had an AI-startup representative as well as a trade association representative. And they looked at this, I guess, "problem," quote-unquote, in the way they discussed it, from a couple of ways. I think you can look at it from a, what can we do from an objective standpoint to upgrade the energy infrastructure? As well as, there is some contention on the point of how bad is it actually, in terms of how bad is our current grid, as well as how bad are energy prices?
Dave Bittner: Mm. There's a lot of talk about that just locally around here, you know, supply and demand.
Ethan Cook: Yeah, it's not great.
Dave Bittner: Yeah, it's not great. That's a good way to put it.
Ethan Cook: One of the people who was attending, you know, brought up this DOE study. Now I searched for this study and could not find it. I spent a good almost hour looking for it, and I could not find it. So I'm sure it's there because later in the -- later, when they were fielding questions and answers, a Georgetown professor actually brought up the study to push back on some of the claims that were made. So I know it's a real study. I just cannot find it for the life of me.
Dave Bittner: It may have used to have been there. [laughter]
Ethan Cook: Exactly. So it was a Department of Energy study that was looking at energy prices from 2019 to 2024. And the prices found that the energy prices had declined when adjusted for inflation, comparatively. Now, that sounded really weird to me because everything I've heard has heard that they have increased.
Dave Bittner: Yeah.
Ethan Cook: Now, the Georgetown professor did come back, and this is where the pushback happened because the statement was that these declines across the state, and this is not for every individual state, but as like a whole, especially in places that have a lot of data centers such as Texas, that was one of the states that were cited for declines, was due to an increase in efficiency for battery capacity storage. So, you know, if you can store more efficiently, you don't need to charge as more efficiently, etc. So you don't have to pay as much.
Dave Bittner: Right.
Ethan Cook: That was one of the cited kind of pushbacks. So I spent a significant amount of time looking for this just to purely see what was happening, and I could not find it. But they mentioned three issues outside of just the debate of whether prices have gone down or not regarding impacts. And the first was existing energy grid efficiencies, the retiring of fossil fuel production capabilities, and weather events damaging the distribution network, for the impacts on the grid. The conversation regarding the actual inefficiencies of the grid was particularly notable. Now, I'm not sure if either of you have tracked the SPEED Act that's been going through Congress. I think it was passed by the House relatively recently. I don't know its current state in the Senate. But the whole goal of it is to overhaul our permitting process for zoning, etc., and building out new things. Because I think it was the Google person threw out a number which seemed absolutely mind-boggling to me. But to build out new energy infrastructure from the very beginning, from permitting all the way to actual construction, can take over a decade, which that seemed insane to me.
Dave Bittner: We're going through that right now in Maryland, aren't we, Ben? They're trying to build some kind of major electrical thoroughfare?
Ben Yelin: Transmission line. Yeah. And I don't want to disparage them, but the NIMBYs, not-in-my-backyard folks, are out in full force --
Dave Bittner: Right. Exactly.
Ben Yelin: -- saying, you know, over my dead body, including people, frankly, who complain about high energy prices.
Dave Bittner: Right. Right.
Ben Yelin: And that just happens to be my view on the subject.
Dave Bittner: [laughter] Yeah.
Ethan Cook: It seems like from the bipartisan panel here, a view that everyone shared, which was the -- you want to complain about energy prices, but when we propose new energy prices, solutions to lower those prices, you don't want those either. So how are we supposed to -- where can we meet in the middle was the kind of emphasis of the question. You know, the SPEED Act is, you know, aimed to, you know, kind of fix these, I think was the word they used was, draconian permitting processes. And just the way that they go about it and the way that -- You know, for example, many state and local counties still use paper to actually do the permitting process rather than using any sort of electrical equipment or, you know, submission for electronical forms, etc. You have to do everything by hand, and that, coupled with the need for new policy that encourages energy utility providers to overhaul their existing infrastructure. So the first was, you know, that permitting is building out new, but the, you know, we have an outdated grid. And they specifically cited, you know, high capacity conductor material for a lot -- for wires and how a huge upgrade could be to just go through and replace old crappy wires with new, really good wires that can transfer way faster and reduce bottlenecks and how there is a lack of existing regulation or policy that encourages energy companies to go and make these changes, you know? And they're not incentivized to do it on their own. And I'm curious your thoughts on both of that kind of the, or at least Ben from it, because I know you do a lot of work with the Maryland government on how that energy, like working with the power companies has been, or the state, because obviously we're a huge data center state.
Ben Yelin: Yeah. I mean, I think they've been desperate. I am not an expert, even though I am attuned to policy in Maryland on the energy grid here. But my understanding is, one of our big energy distributors is located out of state. And there have been kind of negotiations with them, with the governor, for the past few weeks of easing supply lines and trying to reduce the burden on distribution that we've seen in the past few years, as the demand for energy, partially because of these data centers, has increased so significantly. And it's become a huge political problem in Maryland. I mean, I think people see the size of their electricity bills. And if people start to associate that with data centers, there are going to be pitchforks out for big tech companies and AI, generally.
Dave Bittner: So I'm curious, Ethan, like the degree to which they talked about this from a global perspective, because just this past week, I was reading an article about how much solar and wind China is bringing online and that they actually decreased their CO2 emissions, you know, relative to their overall energy production. Because you often hear people talk about whatever we do doesn't matter because China is bringing coal-fired power plants online. Well, they are, but they're way outstripping their coal-fired plants with solar and wind. And so my question is, was there any conversation about the need to be competitive with a nation, China specifically, that can say, hey, guess what? We're putting in solar panels. Deal with it, right? [laughter]
Ethan Cook: Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely.
Ben Yelin: And they can do that in China.
Dave Bittner: Right, right.
Ben Yelin: Here, we have to go through 10 levels of review where it's like, oh, there's a type --
Ethan Cook: Why wait 12 years?
Ben Yelin: Yeah. There's of eagle that might go extinct if we put up a solar panel. So we have to have 10 community meetings about it.
Ethan Cook: So, you know, they actually, the topic of renewables came up pretty heavily. And surprise, surprise, the person who was saying that energy prices declining was also an advocate for natural gas as a solution and that renewables were not the solution. Shocker, I'm sure.
Dave Bittner: [laughter] Right.
Ben Yelin: Right.
Ethan Cook: And that the argument there was that renewables are not -- they cannot sustain a 24/7 network the way AI requires us to create a 24/7 network. Which, I am not an energy expert, so I cannot, you know, confirm or deny that. But it seemed a little -- it seemed a little weird in the juxtaposition of China uploading or, you know, kind of creating all these renewables that if renewables were completely useless or not, you know, only let's say 60% useful, then why are other countries investing so heavily in them?
Ben Yelin: Yeah. I mean, there's also a difference in what I think we've done historically, which is not pick favorites in terms of energy supply. Like, we go with whatever is cheapest, which like a lot of environmental activists have been very unhappy with because there are external costs. Now we're kind of like going so far in the other direction, where we are actively subsidizing coal, even though there are far cheaper sources of energy that are more abundant. So I don't -- You know, even if you believe in energy independence and drill baby drill as an ideology, like it just doesn't make sense to focus so heavily on a type of energy that's being outcompeted by other forms.
Ethan Cook: Yeah. And one of the things that did come up in terms of that alternative energy sources outside of just, you know, traditional fossil fuel was nuclear and the push to get nuclear online. Obviously, nuclear has been something of a taboo within the global view outside of both, you know, the incident in the 20-teens, I can't remember the specific year in Japan, Chernobyl as well as Three Mile Island in the US. And, you know, this is not something that I think is even a partisan issue. I think it's kind of a universally accepted issue. They brought up -- The clean energy representative there said, yeah, I consider nuclear to be clean energy, even though, from a technical standpoint, I think if you went scientifically, it's not because there's obviously a significant amount of nuclear waste created in the process. But compared to, let's say, coal or, you know, fossil fuel, it's substantially cleaner.
Ben Yelin: And a lot of European countries now are going back to building nuclear plants. If we can try and do it in a way that protects our health and safety, like it is -- could be a source of energy for us and our data centers.
Dave Bittner: Yeah.
Ethan Cook: And I think that was an interesting kind of dynamic. And you see that within the US. I'm not sure how much people tracked both Trump's AI policy as well as his funding, but there has been a substantial amount of funding and effort put in from AI to get nuclear on scale faster.
Dave Bittner: Right. They want to bring -- they want to fire up Three Mile Island again, right? I think it was Microsoft who was talking about that.
Ethan Cook: Yep.
Dave Bittner: Yeah. Well, Ethan, I want to move you along to the other topic just with the time that we have left here. What was the third one?
Ethan Cook: Yeah. So the last one was the 30 for 30 looking at broadband competition over the past 30 years and how that's impacted our current, you know, I guess let's say, media ecosystem. And then 30 years, what can we expect over the next year? So the first thing they bring up is the Telecommunications Act of 1994, which, you know, this is the, I guess from, you know, me not being a broadband expert, is the holy grail of broadband laws in terms of kind of a lot of what we have today can be traced right back to that.
Dave Bittner: Yeah. Certainly foundational.
Ethan Cook: Yeah. And, you know, the aspect of, you know, it was designed to be an antitrust act that promoted stronger competition and, you know, tried to create a competitive marketplace. I learned that it gave, I think it was Section 10 they cited, which gave the FCC the ability to ignore Congress's directives so they can make a more competitive marketplace. I thought that was particularly very unique just from a personal policy standpoint.
Dave Bittner: Yeah, yeah.
Ethan Cook: But I'm curious what you're -- You know, they talked about the, you know, the panelists talked about -- And on this panel for context, there was a representative from Comcast. There was a policy expert who had, you know, a policy fellow, a whole host of diverse perspectives. One of the things they mentioned was the need to update this law for modern market shifts and how, you know, a lot of the aspects that this law was attempted to regulate was, you know, let's say phone lines, which are largely non-existent anymore, as well as, you know, we talked about, like, broadband and TV, and now we have streaming and these mega, you know, media companies that are, you know, satellite, for example, and the need to update this for modern market shifts. And they specifically cited, you know, examples such as eliminating and terminating wireless and data service charges or access charges, addressing the convergence of cable, satellite, and internet companies, and updating the fund, the Universal Service Fund, which was originally built to address landlines. And this need for updating, this need for improving, is a, you know, kind of echoed a previous person who was there, which was Commissioner Anna Gomez from the FCC, who talked about how right now you see this massive merger and the approval of mergers by the FCC, somewhat concerningly, to allow, you know, major, major entertainment companies to kind of come together. What are your all thoughts on kind of this, I guess, consolidation of the media companies? I mean, we are a media company ourselves, so.
Ben Yelin: The consolidation of our company is great, by the way. [laughter] Yeah, if anybody just wants to pour more money into this, that's great for all of us. No, yeah, it's a real concern, especially because I think, to the extent people rely on these companies themselves to out-compete each other in terms of things like privacy features, that's going to be diminished if there is all of this market consolidation. And, you know, I think that's a huge cause for concern. It's something that the Biden administration tried to tackle. And the Trump administration has actually taken up the mantle on a couple of those cases as it relates to like Google's monopoly over search engines and a couple of those cases. I think consolidation can also be a good thing if some of the best ideas that are being put out in the AI space become profitable, because the open AIs of the world can purchase them. So there's an incentive to build the newest cool tools, thinking that you might get that influence of money, given that there are these giant conglomerates who are willing to buy things up. But it's definitely still a concern for consumers that companies don't have to compete as much on behalf of our interests.
Dave Bittner: Our listeners are probably tired of hearing me say this because I express it whenever given the opportunity. My concern and frustration is when companies get so big that they no longer operate in what I describe as a human scale. In other words, try calling customer support at Amazon. Try calling customer support at Comcast. Try any of these companies.
Ben Yelin: What's the Lily Tomlin line, Dave?
Dave Bittner: Right. "We're the phone company. We don't have to care." And I am old enough to remember when, for example, cable TV was brand new. And it was exciting to have it come through your neighborhood and see them digging the little trenches because soon you were going to get HBO. But the fact of the matter is, back then, it was a local company. And so if you had a problem, chances are there was someone in your community who could help. Or you knew someone who knew someone. And we don't have that anymore. With these giant companies, again, if you have trouble with Comcast, good luck with that, right? None of us say, oh, boy, I need to call my cable company today. I'm sure that's going to go great.
Ben Yelin: Right.
Ethan Cook: Right, right. What do you mean? I don't want to be on hold for eight hours straight?
Dave Bittner: Exactly. But you also really don't have any choice. You're lucky if your community has a duopoly.
Ben Yelin: Yeah. I mean, I always talk about the airline industry in that regard. Like, there used to be much more competition in airlines. Even up until very recently, a company that shall remain nameless, which has a hub in our home state, was really unique in that the fares were lower, they didn't charge for baggage, and you got to pick your own seat.
Dave Bittner: Right.
Ben Yelin: What they realized is that people were still going to purchase tickets on their airline if they got away with those services because there just aren't that many choices. And now they don't have those features, and people are really mad.
Ethan Cook: Right. It's just another airline.
Ben Yelin: Exactly.
Ethan Cook: And this actually came up. This came up in conversation regarding, you know, the past 30 years, the policy has been to, you know, for broadband, to get broadband to anywhere. It didn't matter who was the provider, even if there was just one provider, because the area had broadband, and that was the win. You know, that was the checkmark. We did it. Congratulations. Pat ourselves on the back and walk away from the community, right? And how the result of that has been -- And the hope at the time was, okay, well, if we give, you know, X broadband company the ability to have this whole segment of, let's say, Montana, that they're going to be fair to Montana and the people who live there, right, and not, you know, charge them for crazy money because the federal government is going to support them. And the federal government paid for them to help, you know, get these lines out there. And in reality, what it turned into was now they get their prices jacked up because the company goes, well, we own everything here. We have no intent of selling, and the federal government paid for all this. So their federal government is not going to back out now because they just invested $50 million to get us here.
Dave Bittner: Well, and I think there was hope that we would see true disruption, you know, through things like Starlink. You know, there could be something that would come in. Ethan, we are running out of time here, so I want to wrap things up with you. I mean, what were the overall big takeaways for you?
Ethan Cook: Yeah, so, you know, from the entirety of the conference, I think the huge conversation was we need to address AI. We need to get AI managed. It can't be something that we just let sit back. Whether it be from establishing a new regulatory body to manage AI, or whether it be to get more international cooperation on AI, one of those two has to happen. And I think the other thing is, right now, we have a ton of marketplace issues with broadband, with media companies, etc. And we can't sit back and continue to let these companies maintain a massive control. Action needs to happen, whether it's from a positive view, or, you know, whether it's from implementing new regulation, breaking companies up, imposing new competition requirements. Something needs to happen. Something needs to give to make sure that the marketplace remains competitive over the next 10 to 15 years, not just right now. And, you know, I think there's some hope that AI can help kind of shake some of that up. The improvement of satellites. You know, we're launching more satellites into every year. That could help break some of these things up regarding, you know, you mentioned Starlink. So I think all these things were a massive point of, okay, we're almost in this era of waiting. We're waiting to see what gives. Something has to give. We're kind of in this track, and whatever gives is what's going to go. And I think that's going to kind of kick off a whole host of changes.
Dave Bittner: Well, is your sense that the tone was optimistic or pessimistic or neutral? What was the vibe in the rooms that you were in?
Ethan Cook: Yeah, I'm going to say cautiously optimistic.
Dave Bittner: Okay.
Ethan Cook: I think there was a lot of like an attitude that this could happen, and it could get better. We need to define this, and someone's going to define that. And it's going to be for the betterment of everyone. But there was this aspect of fear that either we will act way too late, and the damage will have been done, or we are going to make the wrong decision because we don't really know what to do. So either we're going to do a very vague thing that is not really impactful and allow this to get away, and, you know, at the moment, we'll pat ourselves on the back. Congratulations, we did something. In reality, we did nothing, or we made it worse, or we call it wrong. And, you know, we say, okay, AI is going to do this. We regulate it this way, and AI does the exact opposite. And now we're like, oh, crap, we spent 15, or, you know, 10 years trying to get this regulation set up. And it's turned out to be completely useless, and we mispredicted this entire thing.
Dave Bittner: Ethan, have you written up any of your thoughts about your attendance at this conference?
Ethan Cook: I have not, but I can.
Dave Bittner: [laughter] I think that would be a great thing for our "Caveat" newsletter folks to be able to have your thoughts there as well. So perhaps we can talk to the powers that be here at N2K CyberWire and make that a task for you to take. Not to put work on your plate. [laughter] But I think people would enjoy hearing some more of those in-depth insights for you having attended that.
Ethan Cook: Yeah, absolutely.
Dave Bittner: Yeah. All right, well, Ethan Cook is our colleague here at N2K CyberWire. He is the author of the "Caveat" newsletter, as well as the CyberWire Pro weekly Business Brief, so do check that out. Ethan, thank you so much for sharing your insights from attending the State of the Net Conference.
Ethan Cook: Yeah, thank you for having me on. [ Music ]
Dave Bittner: And that is "Caveat," brought to you by N2K CyberWire. We'd love to know what you think of this podcast. Your feedback ensures we deliver the insights that keep you a step ahead in the rapidly changing world of cybersecurity. If you like our show, please share a rating and review in your favorite podcast app. Please also fill out the survey in the show notes or send an email to caveat@n2k.com. This episode is produced by Liz Stokes. Our executive producer is Jennifer Eiben. The show is mixed by Trey Hester. Peter Kilpe is our publisher. I'm Dave Bittner.
Ben Yelin: And I'm Ben Yelin.
Ethan Cook: And I'm Ethan Cook.
Dave Bittner: Thanks for listening. [ Music ]
