2024 Tech Policy Predictions

With the tech policy landscape showing no signs of slowing down in 2024, AEI’s tech policy team is taking a moment to make some predictions for the year ahead. 

Following the whirlwind AI developments of last year, Shane Tews predicts that 2024 could see dramatic progress in understanding AI’s responsible applications for managing workflows and augmenting education, alongside attempts to balance innovation with ethical considerations. As more institutions and individuals integrate AI systems into their operations, society’s comprehension of AI utilization will likely increase.

In the world of financial technology, 2024 will be a good year for cryptocurrency, according to Jim Harper. The “halvening”—the programmed point where the production of new Bitcoins will fall by half, causing prices in cryptocurrency to rise generally—is slated for late April. The March sentencing of Sam Bankman-Fried may give crypto a boost too, as crypto prices respond to the elimination of bad actors.

According to Harper, the anticipated price action has predictable policy consequences. It being an election year, the stars are aligned for a banner 2024 full of political promises and favors. While a central bank digital currency (CBDC) is unlikely to emerge this year, Harper believes that an open debate is needed about whether the current policy of mass financial surveillance could survive the creation of a US CBDC.

In the courts, this year’s companion cases of Lindke v. Freed and O’Connor-Ratcliff v. Garnier will examine the complex issue of government officials blocking people from their private social media accounts. The Court, as Clay Calvert explained, is trying to fashion a test for determining when an official’s use of a private account relates to their job enough to trigger state action and First Amendment concerns. Calvert predicts the Court will devise a totality-of-the-circumstances test, identifying at least three non-exhaustive factors lower courts should weigh, and send the cases back to them to apply that test. The test, however, won’t fully satisfy government officials or blocked citizens; it will be viewed as a compromise.

The jawboning case of Murthy v. Missouri (formerly Missouri v. Biden) also involves a state action question: Did efforts by multiple Biden administration officials, departments, and agencies to convince platforms to remove lawful content cross the line separating permissible voluntary persuasion from government-coerced censorship, violating the First Amendment? According to Calvert, the Court will fracture along perceived ideological lines, with Justice Alito or Thomas penning the majority opinion for five or six justices. The majority will hand Missouri, Louisiana, and the individual plaintiffs a resounding victory.

Finally, the cases of Moody v. NetChoice and NetChoice v. Paxton involve, respectively, efforts by Florida and Texas to compel platforms to host posts that (and users who) violate the platforms’ policies regarding acceptable speech and to provide detailed, individualized explanations to users who’ve had content removed or altered. The Court will likely rule five to four for NetChoice on the compelled-hosting issue in both cases, with Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. writing the majority opinion, joined by Justices Katanji Brown Jackson, Elena Kagan, Brett M. Kavanaugh, and Sonia Sotomayor. According to Calvert, how the Court will rule on the individualized explanations issue, however, is less clear.

Elsewhere, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and Department of Justice will likely continue to press antitrust cases against Big Tech, according to Mark Jamison. The FTC will continue to lose cases, but many of the FTC’s supporters consider these losses to be wins, thinking that the cases will keep pressure on Big Tech and on Congress. If the regulators win cases, Dr. Jamison believes customers will suffer, but they are more likely to blame companies for declining innovations than the regulators.

Moreover, the Federal Communications Commission will likely adopt net neutrality regulations, but Jamison predicts these will end up in court. The regulations could slow broadband investment and innovation, but the effects will be hard to see in the near term given the billions of dollars spent on broadband subsidies. At the same time, the National Telecommunications and Information Administration will likely approve most state’s BEAD proposals without many changes, and the programs will be launched. In AEI’s forthcoming Broadband Barometer Project (which tracks deployment efforts and provides resources to state broadband offices), most states will receive a letter grade of C, primarily because their grant processes lack robust competition and accountability, according to Dr. Jamison.

Internationally, Huawei’s breakthrough with a new smartphone (Mate60Pro) signals the reemergence of the company as a major competitor in smartphone competition, with at least some 5G capability, according to Claude Barfield. Based on strong smartphone sales, the company projects a nine percent increase in revenue in 2023. Though the alliance with Shanghai-based Semiconductor Manufacturing International has paid off, the Chinese companies are still about half a decade behind the US, and without topflight lithography equipment, they will still struggle in the broader 5G rollout by multiple vendors.

Moreover, the standoff over the Biden administration’s astounding retreat on digital trade rules—free flow of data and opposition to data localization—will continue to undermine an open Internet and the advanced policies of US allies such as Japan, Australia, New Zealand, and South Korea. Barfield and commentators agree that only China will benefit.

For more information on the tech policy team’s forthcoming publications and events, please follow us at @AEITECH and subscribe to Tech Policy Daily.