Information and Technology Policy

1 Course Unit

We are experiencing an upheaval of the information ecosystem, with profound consequences for the health and function of democracies. This course will examine the governance of media and information technology-–using both a historical lens and a modern policymaking toolkit. In the U.S., today’s information technologies are being governed through legal frameworks from an earlier era. We will trace laws from their historical roots to their impacts on today’s emerging technologies, including digital news, online platforms, and artificial intelligence. From the telegraph to the Google anti-trust case; from the telephone to common carriage and net neutrality; from the radio to spectrum policy for 5G internet; and from fair use to the development of AI. Further, students will develop a multi-faceted toolkit essential for designing, assessing, and implementing information and technology policy. Specifically, students will: (1) improve their understanding of the available policy levers, their trade-offs, and how these interventions are implemented by government bureaucracy. This aspect of the class will be comparative, including international policy, especially the European Union. (2) deepen their technical knowledge of software and algorithmic systems to better reason about their impact on the information ecosystem. (3) sharpen their ability to interpret evidence from computational social science to inform policymaking. The course will draw from the instructor’s recent experience in technology and AI policy in the Biden White House and will further incorporate leading practitioners and policy experts as guest lecturers. 1 Course Unit