Andrew Yang, former candidate for president of the United States and mayor of New York City and founder of the Forward Party, had sobering observations about the use of blockchain, or lack of use, in the United States and the U.S. regulation of artificial intelligence (AI) when he spoke on November 16 at the North American Blockchain Summit (NABS) in Fort Worth, Texas.
Yang, who described himself as “a strong believer in smart money and smart currencies,” said he saw blockchain and Web3 technology in a dire state, especially in the United States, which risks pushing companies to the flights abroad. Part of the problem is public perception, Yang said:
“The way to avoid this fate is to have positive use cases for blockchain in solving problems for the American people. […] Unfortunately, they only see Sam Bankman-Fried and FTX in the news.”
“We haven’t scratched the surface of what these tools can do to fight poverty,” Yang said. He also saw other potential applications of blockchain technology in social life. “Something I’m super passionate about, why can’t we vote on our cell phones?” he said.
Yang also expressed concerns about AI, saying that US policy on AI is “fairly limited, perhaps even incoherent.” Yang was one of 2,600 technology leaders and researchers who signed an open letter calling for a moratorium on training AI systems more powerful than GPT-4. He reiterated at NABS: “We may be at the forefront of developing these generative models.”
Andrew Yang at NABS on November 16. Source: Turner Wright, Cointelegraph
AI is closely linked to politics, Yang said, because of the effect it could have on campaigns and public life in general. He said:
“You saw a deep fake of the Pentagon on fire and the markets moved accordingly.”
The US regulatory approach – “let’s wait for the fiasco to happen and then we’ll hold hearings on it afterwards,” Yang called it – and “winner-takes-all” economics are part of the problem. In that atmosphere, the benefits of technological progress will be very unevenly distributed, further exacerbating existing divisions in American political life.
A special IPR correspondent attended the recent Florida Forward Party kickoff, where Andrew Yang declared that he would support Rep. Dean Phillips is backing President Joe Biden in the Democratic primaries. Follow IPR for more! #flapolhttps://t.co/7jl6oR3lsv
– Independent Political Report (@I_P_R) November 16, 2023
Social media falls under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996, Yang said. Facebook didn’t even exist in 1996. Although AI legislation is expected to be adopted in the European Union soon, “we are in danger of falling straight into space because our legislative body is not functioning at a high level.”