Navigating State Tech Regulations and Implications for Federal Laws

Speaker 3
So, so yeah, like I think there's some initial conversations being had.
Speaker 2
That's where I'm keeping my eye really close on all the air regulation conversations that are happening. Even now you're starting to see this trove of legislation and bills being passed at the state level.
Speaker 3
Yeah, that is about to cause a giant headache for these corporations.
Speaker 2
I mean, literally just today, and you, you probably have been following this, but because of the, because of rules in Texas, people in Texas can't access porn hub.
Speaker 3
And I'm not making, I'm making a judgment
Speaker 2
on the content. I'm not making, because I'm taking away all, you know, all like moral perspective here. It's more like from a tech perspective, right?
Speaker 3
So
Speaker 2
because of a gate, because of age gating, people in Texas can't access porn hub. Well, Florida just passed a, as I think it's HB, SB three or something like that, that restricts social media access to anyone to 14 and younger, right? You have to be 14 and up, right? And with that also, there's age gating. So porn hub right now is not accessible in Florida either.
Speaker 3
You have
Speaker 2
Tennessee passing the Elvis act, which is about a name imaging like this in AI and duplicating someone's voice. You're starting to see all these different states in the
Speaker 3
U.S. And that law that are
Speaker 2
going to eventually have to lead to somewhere of a federal law, because there's no way that these companies are going to be able to regulate that from the state level.
Speaker 3
Yeah. Right. So that could happen with virtual air rights. I think
Speaker 2
keeping an eye on what you're seeing right now has an impact on the future of computing. Yeah.
Speaker 1
And then you have things like the AI act out of the EU, right? And there's like all kinds of other things that are coming in. And for anyone who thinks that you may not matter, I'll just remind you of GDPR, which is really neat. You have polyps on your phone over five seconds. So I agree with you. I mean, look, I think you and I both know that, you know, part of the reason you're seeing so much state activity is the absence of anything being able to move at the federal level. And if, you know, if the fact, if Congress could actually move more things through, I think you would see states being a little bit less proactive on these things. But it's interesting because you're right. I mean, at the end of the day, the scope and scale of what these technologies could do is going to be mitigated by sort of hoops and gates that they have to jump through, depending on if they're trying to be universal, if they're able to operate in these different ways in different states, which is really, really complicated and challenging to do all over the place. We see this and we've talked about this quite a bit on the show in terms of digital assets as well. It's the same thing here. It's just digital assets. The gating happens behind the scenes. Like there's a lot of space and there's cost to it and friction to it. Here, I mean, you literally cannot operate, you know, the business, right? It's impossible. How do you even do business? Like, it's going
Speaker 3
to get really complicated. But I do think that those things that you're starting to see at the state level
Speaker 2
eventually come to the federal level, hopefully, right? And that might send some type of president, right? And then I'm looking at all
Speaker 3
the, you know, copyright and IP potential rulings coming down on AI. Like, how does that impact spatial computing? So
Speaker 2
I'm from my perspective, I'm trying to put all these things together and think about second and third order effects. And when I go to Capitol Hill and talk to, you know, to lawmakers, it's like, what does this mean for your constituents at the end of the day? Right? How does this impact
Speaker 3
their day-to-day lives? How does this impact their decisions,
Speaker 2
et cetera? So,
Speaker 3
yeah, it's a highly, it's a highly complicated moment we live in, exciting
Speaker 2
from a technological perspective, but complicated, for
Speaker 1
sure. Well, I think there's a real emphasis now, which we didn't necessarily see in the first period of the internet around harm prevention or harm reduction. And I certainly don't think that that is a, I'm certainly in favor of the impulse. The question is, how do you manifest that in ways that are actionable and meaningful, right? Because you can do all kinds of gating, like you said, all kinds of things that are not actually solving the problem of harm. And they're just kind of creating friction and friction, you know, the introduction of friction sometimes that helps, but usually it doesn't make any difference. They're workarounds to friction. They're all kinds of things that can be done. And we all know this, right? And if anybody who's ever watched a movie from the 80s and seen, you know, the kids climbing out the back window of the, you know, whatever, right? It's just like, there's analog ways of getting around the long way. There's analog ways, yeah. There's a lot of analog ways. So, so the idea that I think the instinct to kind of say, look, we are in a time when the science does show that there have been harm, especially to young people from constantly being online, impulse control, like content, like all these kinds of things. That's, that is true. I take that as true. I think it is evidence-based for sure. It's one of the reasons my kids don't have smartphones, for example, and not online, like period, right? So that's true. And I think, again, the instinct to try to say, well, what is this next phase of possibility and possible harms? But again, that involves very deep technical understanding that with all due respect, a lot of policymakers at whatever level that will do not have, do not have. Yes.
Speaker 3
I will tell you, yes, many of them do not have that.
Speaker 2
In different parts of the government, like I have, I have this beef with like the patent office, which I'm like, sometimes I see some of the patents they approve. I'm
Speaker 3
like, this is a far reaching pat, like a far overreaching patent. How are you even authorizing this? Like the person that authorizes might have some technical knowledge, but truly
Speaker 2
doesn't understand what they're authorizing here.
Speaker 3
So yeah, I think it's happening everywhere. Whenever I come across any of these laws
Speaker 2
now, the first thing that I ask myself is, how is this enforceable?
Speaker 3
How can you enforce this? I was even enforceable,
Speaker 2
right? And that's at the crux of like the Elvis Act in Tennessee and SB3 in Florida and like everything that's happening. How is this even enforceable? It can only be enforceable if it gets to the federal level at the Grandriski Mothings.
Speaker 3
And that being said, I
Speaker 2
think it's such an important moment for anyone in Web 3 and Blockchain, because there is a chance to potentially create the
Speaker 3
solutions to
Speaker 2
help find solutions for these things, right? How do you do, you know, age gating in a way that might work? How do you do, you know, provenance in a way that might work at a large scale for everyone? So, you know, as much in doom and gloom as there is, because Starbucks closes down their, you know, Odyssey thing, like, I'm
Speaker 3
like, that isn't the end
Speaker 2
all be all. At the end of the day, this technology needs to be helpful to humanity.
Speaker 3
And right
Speaker 2
now, we are being forced to try to find solutions. Right. That is an opportunity for anyone to listen to this.
Speaker 1
Yeah, like the wheels of government and policymaking in this context, trying to keep up with the speed of everything else, it's almost, it's unfathomable that they could in a way. But yeah, we've got to come up with not just new models for how we do the compute and structure this thing, but actually literally how do we regulate and govern it. Okay. And unfortunately, this is, as I knew it would, Kathy, opened up a can of worms that could have taken this and all sorts of directions. I'll let's a strange mixed metaphor. Worms don't do that. But it's been great chatting before we go. You have into the metaverse was your book from a few years ago that people can read. But there's a new one coming out in May. Tell us about that quickly. Yeah.
Speaker 2
Into the metaverse did great. And thank you to Consensus for having me there last year to do a book signing. It was fantastic. This year I have on May 14th,
Speaker 3
a book coming out by Wiley.

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