Fundamentally, I'm committed to human excellence and prosperity. Technology and markets can empower humanity, extend our healthy life years, and solve some of our fundamental problems, but only if we are smart about it. So my research primarily focuses on:
- Artificial intelligence public policy and the economics of automation;
- Vetocracy, good governance, and bureaucratic reform; and
- Attention markets and digital competition.
I’ve also recently written policy papers on regulation of over-the-counter COVID tests and other commercial diagnostic kits; the constitutional and legal challenges of regulating TikTok; and the efficacy of municipal broadband projects. I am also working on an extended research bibliography of my work.
Artificial Intelligence and Automation
Artificial intelligence is a topic I've been covering for over a decade but recently it has come to dominate my research:
- The CHIPS Act and semiconductor economics
- How LLMs might reform government
- The practical problems with California's SB 1047 and issues in legislating for AI safety
- Four major fault lines in AI policy
- First Amendment concerns with regulating AI
- Nvidia’s blockbuster earnings and the value of compute
- The challenges in regulating for bias and fairness
- Problems with Biden's Executive Order on Artificial Intelligence
- How regulatory frameworks are challenging AI-driven services
- Headwinds facing self-driving cars
Vetocracy, Good Governance, and Bureaucratic Reform
The U.S. needs to reform its system of excessive veto power, its vetocracy. The vetocracy paralyzes decision-making at every level, frustrating efforts to build homes, nuclear power plants, solar and wind projects, add new hospital beds, lay railroad tracks, and start businesses. I've collected the evidence of a vetocracy here.San Francisco is what happens when vetocracy comes to dominate a city. I'm also convinced the catastrophic effects of Hurricane Helene in Asheville were worsened because NEPA was used to stop a dam project in the 1970s. But the answer isn’t degrowth. While I am not completely wedded to the concept of the abundance agenda, it is a useful framing for what needs to be achieved. We should focus on economic growth. We need to go faster.
In recent years, I have become fascinated with the management of large government projects, especially those at NASA. My recent article on the cost overruns of NASA's VIPER project is one part of this research stream but I'm also finishing papers on the management lessons from Apollo and cost overruns in the James Webb Space Telescope.
The Attention Economy and Digital Competition
Another major throughline of my research explores the rise of digital platforms and the public policy surrounding these tech giants. My piece titled "The attention economy: a history of the term, its economics, its value, and how it is changing politics" provides the intellectual basis for my work on digital competition. I'm also fascinated by the majority illusion, which is a phenomena that explains how a loud, small, partisan minority can disproportionately shape online narratives. I'm convinced that wokeness got its trial run on Tumblr and the Cambridge Analytica scandal was overplayed. I’ve also analyzed the hidden costs of privacy legislation.Everything Else
I'm also interested in the concept of time, the perils and promise of geoengineering; if we should be vaccinating mosquitoes, whether its important that the FDA made aging a disease, King Tut's meteorite dagger; how real options analysis could help improve regulatory decisions, heuristics guiding my research into politics and policy, broadband buildout, and the moving goal posts of the net neutrality debate.My Substack is called Exformation. It's where I send updates on my work and publish personal essays. The blog on this site serves as a scratchpad to work out ideas before publishing them. My publications page lists of all my work, op-eds, essays. All of my media appearances can be found here. You can find my bio and more information about me here.
For my research fellows, I created a syllabus of key texts for tech policy, as well as a public policy cheatsheet. If you're interested in housing policy, I put together a housing and urbanism FAQ. For economists using ChatGPT, check out my prompts. For a full list of datasets, resources, technical manuals, and the like, check out my commonplace. I'm also constantly updating my working bibliographies on social media research, philosophy of technology, and theorems of cognition.