[inaudible conversations] [inaudible conversations] if could is this on . If i could have everyones attention please. If we could have everyone come back in, take your seats. We want to welcome great competition, who serves on commites significant importance to our industry both in the technology, the internet, all of the infrastructure she serves on the commerce committee, the judiciary committee, our culture chair of the Senate Broadband caucus. In the senate rules committee, how could i forget . She is an important voice in the most important debes facing our country and our industry so we are very thankful she has come today to give the keynote and to talk about the issues this room. With no further ado senator Amy Klobuchar thank you for coming. [applause] okay, thank you everyone. It is wonderful to be here and get off the hill for a little bit i willor say. There is a lots going on as you know we are notre in a shut down or he might not be able to be here. We also have been working on the budget which is somewhat apropos of our topic competition. I have been working to try to make sure the antitrust division of justice, which is not the topic of my talk today, which we funded with senator grassley and i believe that it would be we on 88 eight vote pretty only get that for volleyball resolutions g there. And so we been working about technical language at all sounds small ball. Weve been trying to get that change that has been occupying my mind but now i get to come and see you and go out for the forest for the trees and talk a little bit about her doing what needs to be done to expand haveg competition in america. Companyo thanked chip and angie for inviting me. I know that therev■■g are reps m Great Plains Communications and metronet or are you guys . Of course minnesotans are in the back. [laughter] humble, humble t much. Just of some of you notez4 m cri started out at a law firm for it i was in w a private sector for4 years but this part of why i care about competition. One of my biggest clients with mci change law firms to kng thea conflict. And i love doing their work. Back then they were a really scrappy. The federal law was in the midst of getting pasts and were basically taking on the bell monopolies at the time to get into the market. The case had been done but it was the time they were actually doing the work. I love the regulatory hearingsea there may be a little mundane sometimes. I remember i told the story of how would Alexander Graham bell the first words he said as we all know is we got the telephone was at the hearings i would note in the wild west world of mci when they were getting ready to relay the first communication between st. Louis andom chicago, the investor memorialize that great moment. Not exactly withome here watson, i need you but i will be damned it actually works. [laughter] and i know manyf your companies and people you work with might feel the same way when new discoveries are made with new innovations are made but that really drove me the work with mci, which i loved and i started to work for them all over the region before he prose. It drove me too be a big believer in competition policy so it happened when they got in the market also communications y and is able to see how that release bond cell phone market when there is a big brick and how it brought down a Long Distance charges in a big way. If youon obsessed itwith how we do have competitin in tech and other fields and we have a broadband so people can access things its really driven seeing what it means when we have actual competition. One of the way to do that please bite make sure youre guided by enforcement of competition law it was one of the grandfathers of capitalism yes, be aware, i want to get the words right be where the unbridled power of monopolies. We have got to remember that as we go forward. I actually wrote a book on all of this. It antitrust if you remember during the president ial campaign my friend Pete Buttigieg we truly are friends, would go back and forth in the debates. Since we are on super tuesday im so to commemorate that moment when the more amusing things as we got done with the campaign pete wrote a New York Times bestselling book called trust her not to be outdone one year later i came out of my own two weeks best seller book antitrust thats a truee story. S your members have been great partners in the effort to close the Digital Divide and bring fast,al reliable and competitive highspeed Internet Access to every household and mobile phone in america. ■d your work is the bedrock of our digital economy. We all know you cant participate in 2024 and the annot get online. Its about education its healthcare i visit all 87 counties in minnesota every year some counties are so small i know everything aer person in te county. I also visit a lot of rural hospitals last month i was up for hockey days a hole of the story in a rural minnesota just so you know theres never been a gold medal mens hockey team in the olympics without a player from not just minnesota but a town of 1500 people. I went to some hospitalsear their the use of technology that they are very innovative is phenomenal. They have realized a lot of the seniors, some of this c out of the pandemic are much better off accessing from home know that they have learned to use it are coming into more likely int the rural hospital. They set it up. Theyve got their primary doctoy there its clinics attached to hospital than they get a doctor from mail or somewhere else who talks to them through whats going on. This is an increasing use of lat mile areasth i would say that mt have a highspeed internet. You see this with the mental al care. All ofov the innovation going on that is a must for these areas that are notot going to be ableo ecialty or have a Mental Health provider. It is a game changer but is not going to exist or be expanded if they do not have high speed. I remember several hearings i usee examples of why we need highspeed to every my favorite was when one of my colleagues i am at the mom of a High School Kid who had to do all of his biology exams and eight liquor store parking e lo. That is a true story. This of the captain with the kid going in the liquor store like no thats only played thatli had speed they didnt get it i dont think they have a lot of rural areas. These are true stories of what goes r on the doctors who sit ia mcdonalds parking lot reading xrays thats why such a big believer in bipartisan infrastructure law. I dont thinknk my colleagues wo worked on it. I worked on the broadband part i led that both clyburn. I mentionhr that today because senator sinema has announced today shes not running again. Io know what to say thank you to her for that w and negotiating including the latest agreement or work extensively with her trying to help my afghanugees 80000 people who are interpreters that worked with our troops that are still in limbo. She worked very hard to include that in the border bill. ■c it was included in that part of it will see another day, i hope its really important part is just an example of the work she the bipartisan infrastructure law, you know it makes sense to me week of thisxt extra last mie has some counties in myt state that maybe 20 do not have highspeed a look at it, having visited iceland and so highspet knicks two spewing volcanoes may be, just maybe we could get on the Canadian Border where there is no at all. Those are some things that motivated me too get involved it this. The investment was seen in states across the country it has madetempowered households to get online including 218,000 in my y stay but who is countd believe o fair the enacted in 1934 congress always intended for the fcc to have the authority toca ensure americans have reliable and stateoftheart communication service. As you know way back that but rs that neutrality provided the framework to do just that. It held large internet providers accountable for providing while promoting investment of nextgeneration broadband its also one of the reasons the internet became one of the Great AmericanSuccess Stories transforming not only how we communicate b also the Way Companies do business, how consumers buy goods and how we educate our kids. Unfortunately for my perspective it was repealed in 2018. I continue toti believe are goig to have the focus in that area to make sure everyones going to be able to access the internet on an affordable basis is special with ai coming along, ill get to there is just a reason we want to make sure it continues to be acceptable. Ihi am glad this last year the c took the first steps toward restoring netal neutrality i lok forward to working across the sector to make sure we have a fair and open internet. Next estate step■ privacy. I have found that to be one of the more ironic things i dont think you thought i would say that in the lobbying world of washington d. C. And that when i first got to the senate the companies were lobbying against it. Its kind of constructive forgiving a little at the beginning i maybe thats a good way to be. Theres all the it and you know what happens than the state start having to fill the void. One state to something you think is okay then another sta and pry soon you have a patchwork of laws and so now theyre saying we need a federal law. Which i believed allll along. I am still hopeful i am on the senator cantwells bill this another of the proposals waybacr kennedy and i hope we are able to reach some kind of agreement so that we have a federal privacy law like so many other countries have it would make it a lot easier for everyone. Other things along am hopeful we can move on, very soon, is kids safety on the internet. We had that rather foamous hearing and i myself am sort ofr done with throwing the popcorn of people i thinke need to actually legislate and get something done. One of the issues that is so challenging for families of thec internet is yes whatit onthe plt their kids canid see. An and the need to do everything we can to help those parents be glr them with better tools and the like. I do get sometimes just relying on that is supposed to try to get t stuff off of their and monitor it better through technology would be better. One mom told me she knows are all of these controls but she has three kids and every time she does try to get one thing on one platform she has to have older kids try to teach the younger kids what to do it reminds her there is a big s ans overflowing all of the time. She is out there with some mop trying to clean it up as were her words not mine. I think we have to remember that when we look at how we can put in laws that will actually work so these kids do not get exposed dangerous content. Its one of the reason im working on the revenge of pou seeing where kids think their life is over because someone is trick them into sending a naked to the fbi of kids just this year this is becoming more and more, fence or the latest pills, 30 of people that have exposure to fentanyl do it off the internet. We are going to have to do someth addition to the privacy law we going to so my other stuff im not going to talk aboutut today on competiti. I think putting our heads in the sand because the privacy stuff is probably a great example of that. If you wait so long and do nothin a senator schumer, young, chaim heinrich, youre trying to move on a ice we have a bipartisan agreement then you are left with not a cohesive policy that is why on ai we need symbols of the road. I one o attended i have eight near perfect attendance restaurantea record of the meetings and they had on ai. Maybe because of my background, the work i have done i have appreciated a number of the companies have come forward and said we want to have rules of the road in place when it comes to ai. As you w knoworking with them as well as consumer groups, nonprofit groups and the like to try to get those thuneand foremost senator and i are neighbors in minnesota and south dakota is a little taller than me, have introdud a base built for nonsecurity ai. That would be setting standards for the federal government the f companies and groups that have endorsed thispa bill kind of divides the nonsecurity topics into two o highimpact things that could be more dangerous like critical infrastructure, criminal justice, biometric identification, identification for example effect power grid is using ai to improve efficiency we need t those systems undergo rigorous testing. Cook on Higher Standards on some of the uses of ai. Then a second■7 healthcare, education, weak task which we believe the one who could do th developing some of the standards given them to their agencies instead of expecting each agencies going to go off on their own and talk about a federal agency that seems scary. The idea it would be a coordinating force. Knowing works in agency. To be able to put the standards out first. Voice scans are really concerned about this projecting peoples identities and voices in general. I wa just meeting with our veterans groups on this. I actually come up my state director at home her son is in the marines and at the time i got this deployed and they didnt know where they werent supposed to know where they get this call, her husband is a recently retired reporter gets a cold sore sons voice its been updated dead, dead him in trouble need your help, need your help. Randpa or someone more naive than a somewhat cynical reporter they mightve fallenhere are you a question but how can you be calling me . And then hung h up. That is one example i talk to others families that have done this to they scrape the voice of the internet were probably trying to suck the parent into which is what weve seen in a lot of places. Senator collins and i prevent ai for its cloning scans last thing ive been focusing my work on ai on hopeil these will be included in this space framework. Going similar to Start Talking about democracy. Okay so. [laughter] this is going to be like a hair on fire problem ifont d something about it. I believe theyre going to try to use with a can of the laws and they traditionally have been pretty dysfunctional. Theyve been doing a few more things at a bipartisan basis lately with some of that newer people we put on in my chair of the rules committee, it is in our jurisdiction. I am hopeful they will step up in some way. Youve seen the fcc and others. The best thing would be is to put in clear rules and law when it comes to our election. What we have seen so far is disturbing. New hampshire primary in january fake robocalls using the president s voice we now knowe c campaign all of the candidate was not aware and we will not. Say who it is for they hired a magician i dont know. That is a lukewarm example. But put it out where theres actual major forces trying to do this in a big way. You could literally trick of vote after voter after voter into thinking it is your own candidate. Last year one trump hugging dr. Fauci. Viral video what appears to be my colleague elizabethpp warren she says republicans should not be allowed to vote it was not her but a lot of people thought it was. This is not ai but if you dontg to be just three weeks ago or two weeks ago you saw the horrific shooting the murder of the two Police Officers ine minnesota. They were killed and they rescued seven kids out ofha■ house they got shot. The paramedic ran into rescue them was doing cpr was also killed. A few days after that is a true picture of me at a rally a political rally■ks not going to be normal when these things happen. For an interest based on the tax that had advocacy strong advocacy in ukraine. Police sciy are pressed strongly against defend the police i leave theon bill for cops funding in the senate. That went viral. Called x and facebook and show the aualct photo they put alteredlt content, false content with articles written and it basically nt is just one examplt using o ai of the pure evil of what we arere going to see comin democracy. Thats two bills i lead for my role with the rules can be the first is to go after the really bad stuff the defect recalled that bill was with josh hawley that has exceptionss for things like satire we have it reviewed by democrat and r collins sawyer there. Puzzles many, Many Democrats to rickets is on the bow think people realize who youre going to mess around this on both sides if w we dont have clear rules in place. The other bill were also work on bipartisan one right now some other senators that i didnt mention. At the labeling bill. We had as and you dont to change the color a little and produced by ai will be meaningless as a label. Were trying to capture the middle ground that are significant but not the deep fakes. That will be introduced i soon. And similar clark is a lot of work in the house super just wanted to let you know, it may not be■3 theum mind a huge as te presidency a huge deal if w not get ahead of it. I get something on the books announced that will enable the platform we are taking this down you have to have a label on this because asse you know im not telling you a secret in the area of politics they start going off and make up their new stuff which they may have to because they want have ae choice it is much better if it cemented in legislation of what the ruless f the road should be. Those are some of the things im working on right now. I am really excited in my own state of the expansion of hhighspeed. Already see what that means for people. Im a big believer if you grow up in rural minnesota i love our small town thats not going to happen if you dont have access to highspeed internet. So for those of you on that area of work i went to thank you. On the tech providers side thank you for the great innovations that you have given us part i am just hopeful were going to be able to come7 with some rulesoa of the road that actually work when it comes to thechildrens issues i mentioned privacy competition policy or news organizations theres a lot of things that have been getting there waiting for action. I just think its time to find a compromise so we can move can be a model for us getting ahead of things instead of some of these things serves in the ground like every medical Device Company starts in the garage. And what are we going to do question if we dont have any rules in place it does not seemed like a good way to run a railroad to someone who strongly believes in comti capitalism wanted to thrive one way it thrives as if i we have rules so people feel good about with. And they dont get ripped off they dont have bad stuff happen the kids donthe get addicted to fentanyl i could go onn and on. Weve got to try to do better. I wrote a book actually i will end