Below is the Introduction and Summary to this new Free State Foundation Perspectives. The complete Perspectives, including the footnotes, is here.
I. Introduction and Summary
Ever since the introduction of ChatGPT in November 2022, both the supply and demand for artificial intelligence (AI) have increased geometrically. Although there is significant disagreement over many aspects of AI, including its effect on jobs, economic growth, and the broader society, few people doubt that it will have a profound effect on our lives. And few should doubt that maintaining high-capacity, robust, reliable, and secure telecommunications networks will be essential to maintaining America's AI leadership.
Commentators have spent a great deal of energy trying to predict AI’s impact on specific economic sectors, including, for example, health care, education, material sciences, and financial management. However, less attention has been given to the other direction of causation – the critical role of America's infrastructure networks, especially telecommunications networks, in maintaining high-performing AI services. Telecommunications networks increasingly are foundational elements undergirding virtually all economic activity. In order for AI services to perform efficiently and effectively, other extensive infrastructure networks, including those for electricity, water, and transportation, must also increase their reliance on telecommunications providers' continuous and secure transmission of increasing amounts of data. Therefore, it is incumbent upon policymakers to ensure that America's telecom networks are robust and resilient enough to support these sectors.
A healthy AI sector requires the transmission of incredible amounts of data with low latency in order to train the models. It also demands enormous amounts of electricity, which needs to be transmitted from where power is generated to the massive data farms that house the computer models. The power grid also provides the vast amounts of computing power needed to analyze data. AI systems also need access to a significant amount of water to cool the computers. Finally, smart transportation networks offer many potential benefits like autonomous vehicles, predictive maintenance, and automatic tolling. But like electricity and water, smart transportation networks depend on the constant flow of accurate, secure information on a real-time basis.
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