Refounding America CEO and Former FCC Chairman Reed Hundt Makes the Case for an Artificial Intelligence Commission
Refounding America CEO and Former FCC Chairman Reed Hundt Makes the Case for an Artificial Intelligence Commission
Hundt's new essay draws on lessons from the 1996 Telecommunications Act to chart a path forward for AI governance
Refounding America CEO Reed Hundt has released a new essay, "History Rhymes: 1996 Telecommunications Act and Artificial Intelligence," examining what America's successful navigation of the digital communications revolution can teach us about governing artificial intelligence today.
Drawing on his experience as Chairman of the Federal Communications Commission from 1993 to 1997, Hundt argues that the United States needs a dedicated Artificial Intelligence Commission—a bipartisan institution charged with defining and advancing the public interest as AI transforms society and the economy.
The essay traces how the Clinton-Gore Administration's technology strategy, anchored by the 1996 Telecommunications Act, helped create the conditions for today's most valuable companies—from NVIDIA and Alphabet to Apple, Microsoft, and Amazon. That strategy relied on competition, transparency, international cooperation, and programs like the E Rate, which has invested roughly $200 billion to connect every classroom and library in America to the Internet.
America is in need of "a group of talented people conducting a transparent process to define the public interest," Hundt writes. As of today, "no such group has the authority to write regulations. The norms are ambiguous or lacking."
Hundt outlines nine reasons for creating an AI Commission, including the technology's potential impact on employment, its implications for market consolidation, infrastructure needs like data centers, international competition with China, and questions about how AI will reshape government itself.
"Artificial intelligence has a long lineage but a staggeringly unknowable future," Hundt concludes. "Our experience teaches that the American people deserve a government commission—an institution—that will look out for them as AI changes the economy, society, and, perhaps, the definition of what it means to be human."