Regulation
What Kamala Harris Had to Say About AI, Tech Regulation, and More
With President Joe Biden abandon the raceVice President Kamala Harris could become the Democratic nominee.
In announcing his plans, Biden offered his “full support and endorsement of Kamala as our party’s nominee this year,” while Harris said his “intention is to win and earn this nomination.” That said, it is not clear whether other Democratic politicians will challenge her for the nomination in an open convention or through some other selection process.
If Harris is chosen, Democrats would have a presidential candidate with Bay Area roots (she was born in Oakland) and a long relationship with the technology industry. (Donald Trump’s running mate, J.D. Vance, is also deeply tied to Silicon Valley.) She served as San Francisco district attorney, then California attorney general, before being elected to the Senate in 2016.
VCs like John Doerr and Ron Conway were among its first supportersand, as a presidential candidate, she was quickly endorsed by LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman. Other industry figures, including Netflix co-founder Reed Hastings, have been more circumspect or they asked for an open convention.
Some industry critics have complained that she he didn’t do enough as attorney general to limit the power of growing tech giants.
At the same time, she has been willing to criticize tech CEOs and call for more regulation. As a senator, she has pressured big social networks over misinformation. During the 2020 presidential campaign, when rival Elizabeth Warren was calling for big tech to be broken up, Harris was asked whether companies like Amazon, Google and Facebook should be broken up. She said instead should be “regulated in a way that ensures that the American consumer can be confident that his or her privacy is not being compromised.”
As vice president, Harris also spoke about the potential for AI regulation, saying she and President Biden “reject the false choice that suggests we can either protect the public or promote innovation.”
Biden had issued an executive order calling on companies to set new standards for AI development, and Harris said these “voluntary commitments are a first step toward a safer AI future, with much more to come, because, as history has shown, in the absence of regulation and strong government oversight, some tech companies choose to prioritize profit over the well-being of their customers, the safety of our communities, and the stability of our democracies.”
Venture capitalists Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz recently highlighted concerns that the Biden administration will “over-regulate” AI as one reason why support Donald Trump.
On another hot topic, a recent bill that would ban TikTok If its parent company ByteDance doesn’t sell it, Harris said, “We have to deal with the owner, and we have national security concerns about the owner of TikTok, but we have no intention of banning TikTok.”
Harris has been less outspoken on cryptocurrency issues, though she presumably supports them. Biden Administration’s Cryptocurrency Regulations.