Episode 45: Bison Nationalism w/ Micah Meadowcroft

Are you an Android user? Have you been ridiculed for the dreaded green text bubble, or been accused of “messing up the group chat?” 

In December, the tech company Beeper tried to bridge the Android-iPhone divide. They launched Beeper Mini, an app that gave Android users access to iMessage functionality. The app immediately took off, gaining over a hundred thousand downloads in the first few days and reaching the top-20 app chart on the Google Play Store. But just a couple of days later, Apple shut the app down, citing security concerns and the potential for privacy risks. 

This brouhaha caught the attention of US lawmakers, including Senator Elizabeth Warren, who criticized Apple's actions as potentially anti-competitive. A bipartisan group in Congress has requested the Department of Justice investigate Apple's conduct towards Beeper, suggesting that it may violate antitrust laws. 

The Beeper situation reflects a broader debate around app store competition, security and privacy, and the competitive dynamics between major tech platforms and third-party developers. Are app stores monopolistic? How might Beeper’s story influence the future of antitrust when it comes to Big Tech? 

Evan is joined by Eric Migicovsky. Eric is the co-founder of Beeper and a central player in the ongoing discussions around Apple and its app store. Prior to that, he founded the smartwatch company Pebble, and was a partner at Y Combinator, a startup accelerator. Read Beeper’s blog post about their situation with Apple here.

Many conservatives lament a decades-long stagnation of innovation. As Peter Thiel once quipped, “We wanted flying cars, instead we got 140 characters.” The rise of AI and other transformative technologies may augur an end to this stagnation, according to thinkers like Marc Andreessen, who joined The Dynamist recently to discuss techno-optimism. Others, of course, are more pessimistic. Will we end the Great Stagnation? Will we build the sci-fi future of our dreams? And where does the hurly-burly of politics fit into this conversation? 

Our guest today, James Pethokoukis, recently wrote The Conservative Futurist: How to Create the Sci-Fi World We Were Promised. Jim is a senior fellow and the DeWitt Wallace Chair at the American Enterprise Institute, where he analyzes US economic policy, writes and edits the AEIdeas blog, and hosts AEI’s Political Economy podcast. He is also a CNBC contributor and writes the Faster, Please! Substack. 

We’re also joined by FAI Senior Fellow Jon Askonas and Research Manager Robert Bellafiore. Robert recently reviewed James’ book for The New Atlantis. Jon has written extensively about the politics of innovation, including for Compact and American Affairs. 

In our inaugural live recording ofThe Dynamist, FAI hosted a debate on two upcoming Supreme Court cases, Moody v. NetChoice and NetChoice v. Paxton. These cases could have major implications for online free speech and whether states can regulate the practices of Big Tech platforms.

Over the past ten years, the debate over how companies and governments deal with online speech has only intensified. Whether you call it content moderation or censorship, people have very strong opinions about how companies like Meta, Twitter, YouTube, and TikTok moderate their platforms. Florida and Texas both passed laws in recent years aimed at cracking down on what they see as politically biased behavior by these companies. Florida Senate Bill 7072, among other provisions, imposes fines on companies who "deplatform" political candidates and news outlets. Texas House Bill 20 prohibits social media companies with 50 million or more active monthly users from discriminating against users based on their viewpoint.

On Feb 20, 2024, Evan moderated a debate at FAI’s office in Washington, DC. Arguing for NetChoice is Carl Szabo, Vice President & General Counsel of NetChoice, a trade association representing tech companies and the plaintiff in both cases. Arguing for the states is Adam Candeub, former Trump Administration official and Professor of Law at Michigan State University. 

One of the ways the Chinese government looks to exert influence is by changing the behavior of businesses and individuals who operate in China. Remember the firestorm that occurred when Houston Rockets general manager Daryl Morey sent a tweet in support of the Hong Kong protests? NBA games were taken off the air in China, and a series of profuse apologies on the part of the NBA and its partners followed. 

As tensions rise between the U.S. and China, so do the tensions for businesses trying to operate in China. The nation of 1.4 billion people represents the biggest market in the world and an enormous source of potential revenue. But those who do business in China must play by China’s rules, so what are the tradeoffs? How far is too far? What role, if any, should the U.S. government play in regulating American businesses’ relationship with and dealings in China?

Evan is joined by Chris Fenton, a movie producer and author of Feeding The Dragon: Inside the Trillion Dollar Dilemma Facing Hollywood, the NBA, & American Business. Today, Chris advises companies, brands, and Congress on how to navigate the America-China relationship and co-hosts US Congressional Member delegations in China. 

Last week, the Senate Judiciary Committee brought the CEOs of major tech companies like Meta and TikTok to answer questions about the impact of social media on children—from concerns about bullying and mental health to sexual exploitation. Lawmakers around the country and the world have been increasingly focused on this and other issues under the broader umbrella of digital privacy. Europe has led the Western world in enacting regulations that privacy advocates herald while critics warn they stifle innovation.

We’re 30 years into widespread adoption of the commercial Internet, yet Congress has failed to pass any sort of comprehensive legislation around digital privacy. There’s broad agreement that America needs a national privacy law, so why don’t we have one? In the meantime, a growing number of U.S. states have filled the void with bills like the California Consumer Privacy Act and the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act. How have these laws impacted the tech landscape? How do they impact global internet practices, and shape principles around online free speech and innovation?

Evan and FAI Director of Outreach Luke Hogg are joined by Jennifer Huddleston, technology policy research fellow at the Cato Institute. Her work covers a range of topics, including antitrust, online content moderation, and data privacy. For more, see her recent piece on online safety legislation.

NB: A previous version of this episode was missing content, which has been restored.

Our government agencies are hopelessly out of date. Public documents are stored in backroom file cabinets, instead of being digitized and posted online. As FAI Senior Economist Samuel Hammond has noted, “We validate people’s identity with a nine-digit numbering system created in 1936. The IRS Master File runs on assembly from the 1960s.” 

The deliberations of the government and its agencies are often inaccessible to the general public. And without this information, nearly everything becomes harder. How do you hold government institutions accountable when their activity and data are buried under layers of bureaucracy? How do we improve the collection, organization, and distribution of government information, as well as public information in general? And how will the arrival of new technologies like artificial intelligence help (or hurt) with that goal? 

Evan is joined by Jamie Joyce, Director at Internet Archive, a nonprofit digital library, and Founder of the Society Library, a nonpartisan, nonprofit institution that builds tools and develops products to improve the information ecosystem. She’s also a board member at WikiTongues, an internet archive dedicated to the preservation of world languages.

The New York Times has sued OpenAI and Microsoft, alleging the tech companies violated the newspaper’s copyrights by training ChatGPT on millions of Times articles. The decision in this case could have enormous implications for journalism and AI tools like large language models, and the lawsuit could go to the Supreme Court. While OpenAI says such training is “fair use,” the Times says the companies “seek to free-ride” on its journalism. How will the case be decided, and how will the outcome affect the next decade-plus of journalism and AI development? Fundamentally, should companies like OpenAI be allowed to train on copyrighted material without compensating creators?

Joining us to discuss all of this today are Matthew Sag and Zach Graves. Sag is a Professor of Law in Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning and Data Science at Emory University Law School. He is an expert in copyright law and intellectual property, and a leading authority on the fair use doctrine in copyright law and its implications for AI. Graves is the Executive Director at the Foundation for American Innovation. He was recently invited to participate in the Senate’s AI Insight Forum. 

In examining international competition between the U.S. and rivals like China, we tend to think of two types of power—military and economic. How large and advanced is our military compared to others? Are we overly reliant on other countries for resources like oil and microchips? But there’s a third, less commonly thought of type of power that is crucial to America’s role in the world order. We might call it our reputation or our cultural dominance. The Chinese government calls it “discourse power.” 

In China’s view, America has come to dominate the international system in part by controlling the narrative around governance, norms, and values. For China to gain control in the international order, then, it’s not enough for their economy or military to grow to either match or surpass ours. They have to secure discourse power—one that favors Chinese Communist Party values and their approach to security and human rights. In particular, they see the digital realm as an opportunity to tilt the balance in China’s favor. So what does this look like in practice?

Evan is joined by Kenton Thibaut, a senior resident China fellow at the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab, where she leads China-related research and engagements. See her paper on discourse power and her new article in Foreign Affairs on whether China can swing Taiwan’s election.

With the benefit of hindsight, there’s a lot that people wish they could have done differently after a pandemic, wildfire, or other disasters. That’s why governments, militaries, public health entities, and first responders spend significant time and resources “wargaming” potential scenarios and how best to respond. But while technologies like flight simulators have long played a role in disaster preparedness, AI could dramatically change how wargaming is done and help overcome human “failures of imagination.” How does AI threat-casting compare to human creativity? How could AI change the way governments respond to major stress tests? How might the response to COVID-19 have differed if generative AI were more available to policymakers? Joining us to discuss these questions and more is Phil Siegel, founder of the Center for Advanced Preparedness and Threat Response Simulation (CAPTRS), an AI nonprofit utilizing simulation gaming to progress societal disaster preparedness.

A San Francisco jury recently ruled that Google's Android app store is a monopoly, siding with Epic Games in a lawsuit initiated in 2020. The verdict focuses on Google's practices, such as mandating app customers and developers use its billing system and taking a 30% commission on app subscriptions. Google intends to appeal, citing cybersecurity and other concerns. This ruling raises questions about Apple's App Store, with Epic's similar case against Apple possibly going to the Supreme Court. The outcome could significantly impact antitrust laws and government efforts to regulate Big Tech.

Evan is joined by Adam Kovacevich, founder and CEO of the Chamber of Progress, an American trade group that represents technology companies on issues such as antitrust law and content moderation. He previously helmed government relations for Lime Bike. Prior to that was senior director of U.S. public policy for Google. Follow Adam on X: @adamkovac