Google CEO: Techies must educate governments

bealtine

A touch off topic but the article makes some interesting points as to why "older folk" just don't get this internet thing.


http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9588_22-6126938.html

WASHINGTON--Those in the know about technology must spend more time reaching out to governments and helping them understand the Internet's role in society, Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt said Tuesday.

"The average person in government is not of the age of people who are using all this stuff," Schmidt said at a public symposium here hosted by the National Academies' Computer Science and Telecommunications Board. "There is a generational gap, and it's very, very real."

Of particular importance on the policy front are Net neutrality--the idea that network operators should not generally be allowed to prioritize content that travels over their pipes, or the "revenge of the Bell companies," as Schmidt put it--and digital copyright law. Online-service providers like Google that routinely grapple with complaints about copyrighted content on their properties are adequately protected under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), but any future changes in that area "could significantly change the way the Web works," he said.

Schmidt said he also doesn't expect arguments over the proper balance between individual privacy rights and government intrusion to die down anytime soon. "There's not a single and simple answer," he said.

The Google chief's half-hour talk capped a daylong series of lectures focusing on how aspects of computer science and telecommunications will look in 2016. Standing beside the podium, his right elbow propped casually on its edge, Schmidt wore a dark jacket and slacks and no tie, and he appeared to be speaking largely without a script.

His speech meandered from his memories of the mainframe age to the growing importance of targeted advertising as a business model to his personal belief, which he mentioned more than once, that the so-called convergence of media will not ultimately result in consumers using "one box that has everything."

"It's clear the number of devices and things we're going to use are going to be very different," he said. He would, however, like to see a world in which he can access the same content on each device, via a single log-in name and password, and have everything be "completely seamless."

One topic that scarcely came up, however, was Google's announcement last week of a $1.65 billion deal for online video-sharing dominator YouTube. Asked by CNET News.com after his speech whether the planned acquisition presented any copyright concerns, Schmidt said he had nothing more to say about the transaction--which he noted has not yet closed--saying only that the company operates under the DMCA and "went into this with our eyes open."

Earlier in the afternoon, Microsoft Senior Vice President for Research Rick Rashid spoke of a future fueled by the rise of "human-scale storage." Translation: Since nearly anyone should be able to afford terabytes of disk space by 2016--even today, one can purchase that capacity for less than $500--new possibilities arise for documenting the world around you.

Viewed another way, it's enough to make a privacy hawk's skin crawl--and Rashid acknowledged that those tensions will always exist. "But the reality is, we will be able to do it," he said.

And there are good reasons why people may want to activate what amounts to a "black box" for humans, he said. He pointed to a study by British researchers showing that the use of such devices (in particular, Microsoft Research's SenseCam) by people with memory loss problems has helped them retain information about past events.

"They can keep their life," he said. And more broadly, people "can go back and say, I really want to get that conversation with my father who passed away, I want to get that time back when my 25-year-old first crawled."

Dangger

This ties in nicely with Bertie telling us we'l be the laughing stock of Europe still voting using stupid pencils.

Ironically this government has had access to a wealth of balanced information on the area of broadband for years and years and years from techies within multinationals their own advisory groups and of course Ireland Offline, but they still show a complete lack of understanding and inability to prioritise the issues even when shown the importance.

bealtine

Dangger wrote:

This ties in nicely with Bertie telling us we'l be the laughing stock of Europe still voting using stupid pencils.

Ironically this government has had access to a wealth of balanced information on the area of broadband for years and years and years from techies within multinationals their own advisory groups and of course Ireland Offline, but they still show a complete lack of understanding and inability to prioritise the issues even when shown the importance.

Yes that is exactly what crossed my mind when I read the piece.
Possibly best summarised by this paragraph:
"The average person in government is not of the age of people who are using all this stuff," Schmidt said at a public symposium here hosted by the National Academies' Computer Science and Telecommunications Board. "There is a generational gap, and it's very, very real."

So we get unjoined up thinking from decision makers and I get blank stares from TDs when I corner them and berate them about the state of broadband in Ireland. I'd go so far as to say they resemble rabbits caught in headlights.

I think the education/advice that IoffL have delivered through the years has been clear and unambiguous but just kind of goes "whoosh".

bealtine

Sorry to resurrect this old thread but I feel this is important. It could possibly be the reason why technology projects are usually so disastrous...like the PPARS project and MANS and and and...

http://www.zdnetasia.com/news/business/0,39047112,61962828,00.htm

Chris Patten: Politicians have no grasp of technology
By Tom Espiner, ZDNet UK
Friday , October 27 2006 11:05 AM

Former Hong Kong governor politician Chris Patten has said that a fundamental lack of understanding in government is to blame for a rash of ill-thought-out technology projects and related legislation in recent years.

Lord Patten of Barnes was especially critical of the government's ID card scheme, which is heavily reliant on technology. Speaking at the RSA Conference Europe on Wednesday, Patten said the scheme would not achieve one of its possible objectives of making borders more secure.

"I don't think ID cards make citizens more secure, or frontiers more secure. People would still have been blown up on the Tube last July if they'd had ID cards," he said.

He also criticised the support given to ID cards in 2003 by the then Home Secretary David Blunkett, calling the scheme a "populist Pavlovian Blunkett twitch". Blunkett resigned from the cabinet in 2005 over his involvement in political scandals.

Patten, a former EU Commissioner, was speaking at the three-day conference in Nice, France, on European business and technology.

Many politicians don't understand the technology issues that could affect government IT schemes, he said.

"Politicians have no sound grasp of technology issues — but politicians don't necessarily have a profound grasp of any issue. They rely on advisors for information on how to implement their broad intentions," Patten told ZDNet UK after the press conference. "You have to hope they're well advised."

Cisco's head of government affairs, Richard Allan, himself a former Liberal Democrat MP, agreed that politicians do not understand the technology they deal with.

"Most politicians don't understand technology, which is an increasing problem when increasing amounts of public money are being spent [on technology schemes]," he said. "A basic understanding of information systems would be helpful."

Allan said that just as politicians are expected to understand basic balance sheets when making a decision to spend public money, but not the intricacies of accountancy, so politicians should try to grasp the basics of information systems.

Technical advisors should also avoid jargon, he added. "The challenge is to develop a language politicians can understand, as well as politicians taking the time and trouble to understand it. What often happens is you get somebody speaking technical jargon to someone who doesn't understand the basics," said Allan.

Privacy campaigner Simon Davies, chairman of No2ID, agreed politicians aren't in touch with the issues underlying the technology issues they legislate on, and criticised the conditions in government that have allowed the situation to come into effect.

"Prime ministers and home secretaries are notorious for grandstanding on technology issues, while at the same time having difficulty setting their video recorders at home," said Davies.

"The NHS programme for IT and the ID cards scheme both stand as a testament to the government's complete failure at forward planning [in technology schemes], and its inability to understand technology in the real world," Davies added.

According to Davies, the entire ID cards scheme was "dreamed up in a vacuum".

"[In 2003] the sole driver of the ID card scheme was Blunkett's obsession, but Blunkett himself didn't understand the technology," said Davies.

A spokeswoman for David Blunkett declined to comment on the extent of his understanding of the technology necessary to implement the scheme, but said: "The government is pressing ahead with ID cards despite Mr Blunkett not being in government. He's very supportive of the scheme."

However, academics from the London School of Economics (LSE) criticised that ongoing governmental support.

"Tony Blair's ongoing belief in ID cards shows he has no sense of that technology whatsoever," said Dr Edgar Whitley of the information systems group at LSE. "The Home Office is the same. They haven't told anyone about when the technology will come or how it will work, and they haven't fully tested it."

Professor Ian Angell of the LSE said: "The complexity of the ID cards scheme means it's going to fall apart. Basically [the government has] gone beyond the limits of the technology. But you can't blame the politicians — they're just reflecting the zeitgeist."

Simon Davies also said that reliance on advisors could lead to conflicts of interest, if those advisors represented large technology companies who stood to gain on the implementation of IT schemes.

"Conflict of interest is a sleeping giant in technology," said Davies. "The risk of advisors capitalising on the ignorance of politicians becomes greater."

Davies said that government should pay more attention to select committees, such as the Science and Technology Committee and the Home Affairs Committee, before formulating legislation.

Google chief executive Eric Schmidt has also added to the criticism around poiliticians' lack of IT knowledge.

"The average person in government is not of the age of people who are using all this stuff," Schmidt said at a public symposium hosted by the National Academies' Computer Science and Telecommunications Board earlier this month. "There is a generational gap, and it's very, very real."

watty

It's not the age. Its the liberal arts technology lacking education of people running the shop.

probe

Countries will have to send their politicians off to a Grand École to learn the basics of mathematics, telecommunications, chemical, mechanical and electrical engineering, traffic management, renewable energy systems, public transport etc.

If they have no knowledge of best practice in these fundamental areas of human existence – how can they be expected to be competent to run the show?

.probe

SalteeDog

In a democracy we get the politicians we deserve. One can argue that while society becomes more dependent on technology it's ironic that the interest and general level of standard in mathematics and science is actually decreasing (thinking of school leaving cert figures here and also demand for places in those disciplines at 3rd level).

thebman

SalteeDog wrote:

In a democracy we get the politicians we deserve. One can argue that while society becomes more dependent on technology it's ironic that the interest and general level of standard in mathematics and science is actually decreasing (thinking of school leaving cert figures here and also demand for places in those disciplines at 3rd level).

The fact that less people are doing these subjects is because there are easier opportunities available to them such as construction. Not saying Construction is easy but it is less demanding mathematically so someone who doesn't think they are strong at maths might go down that road instead where as previously they may not have had the easy access to information about other carreer paths (now available becuase of widespread media and the Internet).

I think you'll find more people are happier in the carreers they are in now than they were previously.

Also I did Ordinary Maths but went on to Computer Science and Software Engineering. First year Maths was sort of a catchup to leaving cert for the first month and I kept up. The conclusion I came to was that I was just too young the first time I tried to do it. It clicked the second time with a worse teacher/lecturer.

I also think part of the problem with Maths and Science is that they hide some of the more complex things from you at secondary school so you get told something is just like this where as at college they explain why it is like that when discussing tricks and the like for Calculus which I think is why so many people struggle with it. It is just badly taught so people end up hating it. It is not limited to Ireland either.

bealtine

http://news.com.com/Technology+voter+guide+2006+-+Grading+Congress+on+tech+cred/2009-1040_3-6131719.html


Ever since the mid-1990s, politicians have grown fond of peppering their speeches with buzzwords like broadband, innovation and technology.

John Kerry, Al Gore and George W. Bush have made fundraising pilgrimages to Silicon Valley to ritually pledge their support for a digital economy.

But do politicos' voting records match their rhetoric? To rate who's best and who's worst on technology topics before the Nov. 7 election, CNET News.com has compiled a voter's guide, grading how representatives in the U.S. Congress have voted over the last decade.

While many of the scored votes centered on Internet policy, others covered computer export restrictions, H-1B visas, free trade, research and development, electronic passports and class action lawsuits. We excluded the hot-button issue of Net neutrality, which has gone only to a recorded floor vote in the House of Representatives so far, because that legislation has generated sufficient division among high-tech companies and users to render it too difficult to pick a clear winner or loser.

The results were surprisingly mixed: In the Senate, Republicans easily bested Democrats by an average of 10 percent. In the House of Representatives, however, Democrats claimed a narrow but visible advantage on technology-related votes.

Many high scorers came from Silicon Valley, the birthplace of a laissez-faire attitude toward Internet taxation and regulation. Also unsurprising was George Allen, a first-term Virginia Republican who won the top score in the Senate, at 78 percent, after becoming chairman of the Senate High Tech Task Force five years ago.

A less obvious winner was Rep. Ron Paul, a Texas Republican who represents a rural district along the Gulf Coast that's home to few Web 2.0 start-ups but plenty of cattle ranchers and petrochemical companies. He topped the House rankings with a score of 80 percent, narrowly besting two Northern California Democrats.

"I believe strongly in protecting the Internet," Paul said in an interview. "My colleagues aren't quite as interested in the subject. That, to me, is disappointing."

To create our 2006 News.com scorecard, we selected 20 representative votes in the U.S. House of Representatives and 16 votes in the U.S. Senate. Then we wrote a computer program to download, sort and tabulate approximately 10,400 individual "yeas" or "nays."

To be sure, no political scorecard can satisfy everyone, and all scorecards require making difficult choices. When compiling our votes, we paid close attention to votes on Internet taxes and free trade, which trade associations have long viewed as key factors when evaluating a politician's record. We also included votes on amendments requiring additional reporting to Congress about which electronic surveillance techniques the FBI employs.

Overall, we rewarded politicians who viewed Web sites and computer software as deserving no more regulation than, say, books and magazines--an approach that handed poorer scores to anyone clamoring for new laws. That principle led us to take a dim view of a call for a federal probe of "Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas" and a proposal to target social-networking sites like MySpace.com.

We also awarded points for votes for other longtime favorites of technology companies, such as renewing the research and development tax credit, and curbing class action lawsuits, which lobby group TechNet counted as a priority last year.

Similarly, we gave poor grades to politicians who supported laws that were either duplicative or not effective. Those included the 2003 Can-Spam Act--which zapped tougher state laws and hardly stemmed the flow of junk e-mail--and regulations said to thwart spyware that the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission both say are unnecessary.

Unfortunately, Congress' tendency to shy away from recorded votes means that some important events were not available to score. Bills such as the Family Entertainment and Copyright Act, a Web content-labeling measure, and a high-performance computing measure were approved by voice vote without a record of individual politicians' choices.

Only the winners applaud
Winners reached by News.com did not quibble with their scores. Republican Sen. Mike Crapo of Idaho, who came in second in the Senate with a score of 73 percent, sent us a statement reiterating his commitment to limited regulation and Internet taxation. He told us in an e-mail, "It is important to take every opportunity to support the technology industry, both in my home state of Idaho and nationwide."

Maria Cantwell, a former RealNetworks executive running for a second term in Washington state, landed the top spot among Senate Democrats with a score of 67 percent. "Washington's technology sector is vital to our state's economy," campaign spokeswoman Amanda Mahnke said. "Given her background working in this field, Sen. Cantwell is particularly proud to help support northwest innovation in the Senate."

The losers, on the other hand, complained bitterly about the choice of votes. Sen. John Kerry, the 2004 Democratic presidential candidate, voted in the pro-tech direction in only 2 of 13 votes. That put in him second-to-last place in the Senate, with a score of just 15 percent.

"The methodology behind this scorecard is cuckoo for cocoa puffs," Kerry spokesman David Wade said. "He's been a leader on Net neutrality, helped write the first Internet tax moratorium, and built a coalition of tech leaders and mayors to fight for broadband deployment."

But the Massachusetts Democrat has frequently taken a pro-Internet tax stance. Kerry voted in 1998 to require a supermajority in both the House and the Senate to renew the Internet tax moratorium; and he voted in 2001 against making the moratorium permanent. He also opposed killing an amendment that would encourage online taxation. (Kerry skipped the fourth tax vote, which was held during the 2004 presidential campaign.)

Similarly, a spokeswoman for Democrat Daniel Akaka of Hawaii, the worst-scoring senator, at just 14 percent, claimed that her boss was "not only a friend to the tech industry but also a protector of its future." Akaka scored well on just 2 of 14 votes.

"Sen. Akaka voted in favor of protecting our national security and the American consumer," spokeswoman Donalyn Dela Cruz said. "More specifically, a couple of the votes dealt with protection of our children using the Internet, and another was on a provision contained in the Emergency Supplemental Appropriations Act for Defense, the Global War on Terror and Tsunami Relief. In these cases, his votes do not reflect on his support for the tech industry."

Akaka voted in 1995 for the Communications Decency Act, opposed not only by civil libertarians but also by Microsoft, America Online, Netcom, Compuserve and Prodigy, which jointly sued to overturn it. (In 1997, the U.S. Supreme Court gutted the law as unconstitutional.) In addition, Akaka voted for a so-called emergency appropriations bill last year that contained the controversial Real ID Act, which creates a nationalized digital ID card under the direction of the Department of Homeland Security.

The 30-second hit piece threat
Top-scoring politicians said some bills, especially ones that proponents couched in terms of protecting children from Internet dangers, were politically difficult to oppose.

Rep. Paul, a physician and Texas Republican, has been in a tense re-election campaign with Democratic cattle rancher Shane Sklar. Sklar has been running advertisements questioning Paul's voting record--and especially focusing on Internet-related votes.

"It's the No. 1 issue being used in the campaign against me," said Paul, who has a reputation on Capitol Hill for putting principle before politics. "You do know when you're voting a certain way that it may come back to politically haunt you in the campaign."

Sklar's Web site, for instance, says Paul "has repeatedly voted against legislation designed to catch online child predators"--without noting the constitutional objections that Paul raised at the time.

"I have a personal belief that the responsibility of raising kids, educating kids and training kids is up to the parents and not the state," Paul said. "Once the state gets involved, it becomes too arbitrary."

Like Paul, Democratic Rep. Zoe Lofgren, who represents the district around San Jose, Calif., was in a tiny minority when voting against the Can-Spam Act. She also opposed the Deleting Online Predators Act, which proposes yanking federal dollars from schools and libraries that fail to block MySpace and other social-networking sites. (In July, the House approved that measure by an overwhelming 410-to-15 vote, but it has stalled since then.)

"If you take a look at some of these issues, it's really kind of grandstanding," Lofgren said in a telephone interview. "If you don't come from a tech-rich district, and you know it's going to be a 30-second hit piece ad someplace in the middle of the country, I think that explains it, and that's why (the Republicans scheduled that vote), too--to try to kind of set people up for elections."