There are many reasons that markets are better than governments at providing for human needs. One reason is that it is impossible to predict what the future will bring.
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When governments pick winners and losers, they are attempting to predict the future and shape it in a particular direction. Markets, on the other hand, don’t attempt to select winners; they simply allow the best ideas to thrive.
What governments can and must do, then, is create favorable conditions and allow markets to work. Governments should provide low taxation, sensible regulation, and protection of property rights. If they get those key tenets right, a free people can deliver amazing breakthroughs.
This brings us to Artificial Intelligence.
I’m humble enough to admit that I can’t predict what AI will look like next year, or next decade. Neither can policymakers inside the Beltway or in Beijing. What I do know is that the contest for the future of AI is bipolar. Only the U.S. and China have the resources and the researchers to build effective artificial intelligence. That makes this a race for the future that we simply must win.
The White House is taking many positive steps. Just this week, it unveiled a plan to boost the development of artificial intelligence: not by picking one technology over another, but by taking an all-of-the-above approach that can drive growth and empower entrepreneurs.
“The plan outlines 90 policy actions that dozens of federal agencies should take to cut regulations, help construct data centers, and boost the workforce to build out AI infrastructure,” the administration wrote.
That’s the right approach. To rephrase a cliché that our Chinese friends will understand, “let 100 flowers bloom.” After that, we’ll all benefit from the fruits of AI as it moves in new and exciting directions.
“This plan galvanizes Federal efforts to turbocharge our innovation capacity, build cutting-edge infrastructure, and lead globally,” White House Office of Science and Technology Policy Director Michael Kratsios said. “We are moving with urgency to make this vision a reality.” It’s a good start.
Of course, developing this new technology will require massive amounts of electricity, and the administration is moving in the right direction in this area as well. For too long, our leaders have tried to narrow the availability of energy. Over the years, they’ve tried price controls on oil, export bans on natural gas, hyperregulation of nuclear plants, and the removal of hydroelectric dams. None of these steps helped generate power.
Unleashing the American energy sector is the second leg of the White House’s stool when it comes to powering AI into the future. “The United States must explore solutions like advanced grid management technologies and upgrades to power lines that can increase the amount of electricity transmitted along existing routes,” as the White House puts it.
Credit should flow to Energy Secretary Chris Wright, who is pushing for cutting-edge energy sources that can be sited near AI facilities to deliver clean, often carbon-free, electricity. That will include more gas-fired turbines, of course, as well as small modular nuclear reactors and fusion, which is being developed at MIT and may be unveiled in Virginia (home of the majority of the world’s data centers) in the next decade.
The U.S. should also be building alliances with other free people to counter the Chinese juggernaut. A few months ago, Secretary of State Marco Rubio noted that the development of electricity at home and abroad will dominate American policy “for the next 100 years.”
In testimony before U.S. Sen. John Curtis, Rubio charted a positive course. “We need to discuss how we will invest in countries with the kind of energy supply that can meet that demand. Like, for example, Paraguay,” he said. The Paraguayans have a surplus of clean hydro-generated electricity and are a reliable bulwark in the Americas against growing Chinese influence. We will need to build similar alliances to ensure we shape the future of AI.
The U.S., guided by the free market, will deliver the benefits of artificial intelligence and build a successful economy for the 21st Century. Credit to the Trump administration for setting a steady course into our energy and information future.
The views and opinions expressed are those of the author’s and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of C3.