Andrew McAfee, Principal Research Scientist at MIT’s Center for Digital Business, discusses his new book, co-authored with Erik Brynjolfsson, entitled, “Race Against the Machine: How the Digital Revolution is Accelerating Innovation, Driving Productivity, and Irreversibly Transforming Employment and the Economy.” The book looks at the interplay between unemployment and fast-paced technological innovation. In the book, McAfee and Brynjolfsson propose that technology is outpacing humans, and they discuss whether humans can keep up. According to McAfee, technology is encroaching on skills that once belonged exclusively to humans. He believes that entrepreneurial thinking, different institutions, and new organizational structures can prevent humans from being left behind by the machines.

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Related Links

• “Race Against The Machine: How the Digital Revolution is Accelerating Innovation, Driving Productivity, and Irreversibly Transforming Employment and the Economy”, by McAfee & Brynjolfsson
• “More Jobs Predicted for Machines, Not People”, New York Times
• “Race Against the Machine* and TGS, a comparison”, Marginal Revolution
• “Are You An Internet Optimist or Pessimist? The Great Debate over Technology’s Impact on Society”, Technology Liberation Front

Adam Thierer, a Senior Research Fellow with the Technology Policy Program at the Mercatus Center, discusses his new paper, co-authored with Veronique de Rugy, The Internet, Sales Tax, and Tax Competition. With several states in the midst of budget crunches, states and localities struggle to find a way to generate revenue, which, according to Thierer, leads to an aggressive attempt to collect online sales tax. He discusses some of these attempts, like the multi-state compact, that seeks taxation of remote online vendors. Thierer believes this creates incentives for large online companies like Amazon to cut deals with certain states, where jobs will be created in exchange for tax relief. This, according to Thierer, creates unfairness for smaller online companies as well as for brick and mortar shops who have to pay taxes to the state where they have a physical presence. He proposes an origin-based tax, which imposes the tax where the purchase is made instead of tracing the transaction to its consumption destination. This proposal, he submits, will level the playing field between brick and mortar companies and online companies, and promote tax competition.

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Related Links

• The Internet, Sales Taxes, and Tax Competition, by Thierer & de Rugy
• The Main Street Fairness Act
• The Streamlined Sales and Use Tax Agreement
• “Working up a tax storm in Illinois”, George F. Will

Gerald Faulhaber, Professor Emeritus at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and Penn Law School, discusses his new paper in Communications & Convergence Review entitled Economics of Net Neutrality: A Review. Faulhaber delves into the network neutrality debate noting that consumers do not want complete neutrality since they approve of ISPs blocking content such as child pornography or malware. He explains that there is little evidence that violations of net neutrality have actually occurred, so that consumers today are getting as much neutrality as they want. Faulhaber submits that implementing prophylactic regulations will only stifle innovation and encourage rent seeking.

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Related Links

• Economics of Net Neutrality: A Review, by Faulhaber
• “FCC makes Net neutrality rules official”, cnet.com
• “Getting a Fix on Network Neutrality”, knowledge@wharton

Steven Levy, a columnist for Wired and author of the tech classic Hackers, among many other books, discusses his latest book, In The Plex: How Google Thinks, Works, and Shapes Our Lives. Levy talks about Googliness, the attribute of silliness and dedication embodied by Google employees, and whether it’s diminishing. He discusses Google’s privacy council, which discusses and manages the company’s privacy issues, and the evolution of how the company has dealt with issues like scanning Gmail users’ emails, scanning books for the Google Books project, and deciding whether to incorporate facial recognition technology in Google Goggles. Levy also talks about prospects for a Google antitrust suit and the future of Google’s relationship with China.


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Related Links

• In The Plex: How Google Thinks, Works, and Shapes Our Lives
• “The Problem With Success: With a market capitalization of $184 billion, can Google maintain its reputation as a brash iconoclast?” Wall Street Journal
• “Life ‘In The Plex’: The Future Of Google,” NPR

Patri Friedman, executive director and chairman of the board of The Seasteading Institute, discusses seasteading. Friedman discusses how and why his organization works to enable floating ocean cities that will allow people to test new ideas for government. He talks about advantages of starting new systems of governments in lieu of trying to change existing ones, comparing seasteading to tech start-ups that are ideally positioned to challenge entrenched companies. Friedman also suggests when such experimental communities might become viable and talks about a few inspirations behind his “vision of multiple floating Hong Kongs”: intentional communities, Burning Man, and Ephemerisle.


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Related Links

• Seasteading: Institutional Innovation on the Open Ocean, by Friedman and Brad Taylor (pdf)
• “Live Free or Drown: Floating Utopias on the Cheap,” Wired
• “Homesteading on the High Seas,” Reason

Siva Vaidhyanathan, professor of media studies at the University of Virginia, discusses his new book, The Googlization of Everything: (And Why We Should Worry). Vaidhyanathan talks about why he thinks many people have “blind faith” in Google, why we should worry about it, and why he doesn’t think it’s likely that a genuine Google competitor will emerge. He also discusses potential roles of government, calling search neutrality a “nonstarter,” but proposing the idea of a commission to monitor online search. He also talks about a “Human Knowledge Project,” an idea for a global digital library, and why a potential monopoly on information by such a project doesn’t worry him the way that Google does.


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Related Links

• “The Googlization of Everything: How one company is disrupting commerce, culture, and community,” Vaidhyanathan’s blog about the book
• The Googlization of Everything, Chapter 1
• “Google’s Gadfly,” Inside Higher Ed
• “Google Violates its Don’t Be Evil Motto,” debate over whether Google violates its motto

Adam Thierer, senior research fellow at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University in the Technology Policy Program, reviews the past year in technology policy and looks ahead to next year. Thierer first weighs in on net neutrality and upcoming FCC deliberations could that hatch a new regulatory regime for the internet. He then talks Google and antitrust, the proposed Comcast-NBC merger, and disputes between broadcasters and content providers. He also suggests that two issues — privacy and cyber security — will be at the forefront of tech policy debates in the coming year, pointing to support for do-not-track rules and to recent WikiLeaks and state secrets drama as momentum behind the respective issues.


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Related Links

• “The 5-Part Case against Net Neutrality Regulation”, by Thierer
• “The 10 Most Important Info-Tech Policy Books of 2010″, by Thierer
• “Online Privacy Regulation:
  Likely More Complicated (And Costlier) Than Imagined”, by Thierer

• “And so the IP & Porn Wars Give Way to the Privacy & Cybersecurity Wars”, by Thierer

Joseph Isenbergh, a professor at the University of Chicago Law School, discusses his new essay about open versus closed operating systems, their respective marketing strategies, and their influence on the smartphone market. Isenbergh talks about early competition between Macintosh, with its closed operating system integrated with its PC hardware, and Microsoft, with its openly-licensed operating system that could be installed on any PC. He discusses the trade-off between open platforms that offer lots of consumer choice and the ostensible enhanced user experience created by bundling software with hardware. Isenbergh speculates about the future of the smartphone market, Apple’s iOS, and Google’s Android. He also comments on VHS versus Sony Betamax recording systems, tie-in strategies in wine-selling, and Blu-ray versus HD-DVD formats.


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Related Links

• “Last Apps Standing”, by Isenbergh
• “Letter From Silicon Valley: Doing the Math on Android vs. Apple”, Wired
• “Android as a Bottom-Up Platform”, by Tim Lee
• “Why Android will smash Apple’s iOS”, Digital Trends

Tim Wu, a professor at Columbia Law School, the chair of media reform group Free Press, and a writer for Slate, discusses his new book, The Master Switch: The Rise and Fall of Information Empires. Wu’s book documents the history of media industries in the United States and speculates on what that history teaches us about the future. On the podcast, he discusses Austrian economist Joseph Schumpeter’s theory of innovation, cycles of open and closed competition within industries, the history of government-backed monopolies in telephone and radio, and his thoughts on the future of information empires, the internet, and regulation.


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Related Links

• The Internet’s Mid-Life Crisis, Wu speaking about the state of the internet
• Tim Wu on communication, chaos, and control, The New Yorker
• “Thoughts on Tim Wu’s Master Switch“, by Adam Theirer

Danny Sullivan, an expert on the internet search industry and editor-in-chief of Search Engine Land, discusses search neutrality.  He explains the concept of search neutrality and discusses a recent New York Times editorial suggesting Google’s search algorithm should be subject to government oversight or regulation.  Sullivan points out flaws inherent to the notion of search neutrality and discusses competition in the search engine industry. He also imagines what it might take to topple Google from its perch atop internet search.


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Related Links

• “The New York Times Algorithm & Why It Needs Government Regulation”, by Sullivan
• “The Google Algorithm”, New York Times editorial
• “Our op-ed: Regulating what is “best” in search?”, Marissa Mayer at the Google Public Policy Blog

Kevin King, a recent law school graduate now clerking for a federal court of appeals, discusses his recent paper, Geolocation and Federalism on the Internet: Cutting Internet Gambling’s Gordian Knot.  In his paper King uses the online gambling industry to examine conflict between federalism and the internet — the borderless nature of the internet eschews traditional models of state jurisdiction.  He discusses previous attempts to regulate online gambling, conflict between internet gambling providers and the Kentucky horse betting sector, Congress’ current online gambling bill, and a solution that utilizes geolocation technology.


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Related Links

• Geolocation and Federalism on the Internet: Cutting Internet Gambling’s Gordian Knot, by King
• “An online gambling fix”, Los Angeles Times
• David Post on the state of the internet, Surprisingly Free
• “New Approach May Lead to Passage of Bill for Online Poker”, Stay on Poker