— Ivanka Trump takes the stage: The White House adviser came to CES to talk about the future of work, telling your hosts that the time has come to light a fire under the tech industry.
— Labor leaders descend on CES: Officials from organized labor have seized on the conference as their own chance to build bridges with Silicon Valley — including their increasingly politically active employee bases.
Story Continued Below
— D.C., Valley’s dueling realities on privacy: Top officials from the Federal Trade Commission offered less-than-stellar assessments of how the major tech giants are handling consumer privacy, while executives from Apple and Facebook defended the companies’ efforts.
HAPPY TUESDAY FROM VEGAS, where it turns out that — to the amazement of your hosts, Nancy Scola and Cristiano Lima — casinos sometimes house entire shark reefs, complete with actual sharks. Alas, the reef here was closed when we wandered by late Monday night, after some attendees ate at a “blockchain dinner” put on by IBM and celebrity chef Aarón Sánchez that tracked diners’ scallops and carrots all the way back to the source. But no worries, we’re here all week!
If you haven't subscribed yet to our pop-up POLITICO newsletter live from CES, you can sign up here. You can also dip into CES firsthand via the conference's live video feed. Send Nancy and Cristiano your tips, questions and best slots strategies to nscola@politico.com and clima@politico.com or on Twitter @nancyscola and @viaCristiano.
IVANKA DISCUSSES THE FUTURE OF WORK — The White House adviser and presidential daughter got a polite, if muted, welcome during her keynote on-stage interview Tuesday, despite the flurry of online controversy leading up to her appearance. There was light clapping and no audible boos (and no audience questions).
— The session focused heavily on worker retraining, and included an assurance from Consumer Technology Association CEO Gary Shapiro that “on behalf of the industry, we want to work with you.” Responded Trump: “If we can’t come together on this, we can’t come together on anything.”
— Nancy caught up with Trump just after she left the stage and asked why it was important to fly all the way from D.C. to the temporary home turf of the often-reviled tech industry. Trump responded that the White House and the rest of the government can do only so much on workplace issues. “It’s the employers who know what innovations are coming around the corner, what jobs will be disrupted within their own workforces,” Trump said by phone. “And they need to work with us to ensure that they are making the investments to make sure that those disruptions don’t have a negative impact.”
— Trump also argued that with corporate leaders weighing in so often on political and social controversies, it’s an opportune time to bring up her priorities with them. “CEOs increasingly feel the need to really opine and have an opinion on all issues,” she said, adding: “But in a time of increased corporate responsibility, there had not been enough focus on what the responsibility of CEOs and executives were to their own workers. And we want to change that.”
SPOTTED AT TRUMP’S SPEECH: Former California congressman Darrell Issa. (Trump also noted Salesforce co-CEO Marc Benioff’s presence, but we couldn’t get eyes on him.)
LABOR LEADERS’ TAKE — While on stage, Trump promoted the White House’s push for more apprenticeship programs in the United States — a topic of great interest and some concern to labor leaders. We sat down at CES with AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Liz Shuler and Gabrielle Carteris, president of the Screen Actors Guild‐American Federation of Television and Radio Artists. (Yep, old-timers, that’s Ahn-drea from the original “Beverly Hills, 90210.”) Their orgs are hosting a kind of counter-programming in Vegas this week, in the form of a “labor innovation and technology summit” at Bally’s.
—The pair praised Ivanka Trump and the White House for tackling the future of jobs, but Shuler raised doubts about the administration’s push for so-called industry-recognized apprenticeships, part of this administration’s embrace of business self-regulation. Apprenticeships, said Shuler, are “a system that’s worked for over 100 years. And they’re trying to reinvent it in a way they think will reach more people. But at the same time, what they’ve done has watered down the standards.”
—Shuler and Carteris also said they’re eager to make inroads with Silicon Valley companies and their increasingly politically active employee bases. One way in? Tech workers are eager, said Shuler, to organize over their ability to “influence what their company does as an actor in society, not just, ‘How much are you paying me today?’”
—Why show up at CES? Shuler argued that the U.S. is witnessing an “uprising of workers,” from Google’s Mountain View headquarters to schoolteachers nationwide. “People are in motion,” said Shuler, “and now we’re kinda bringing that to CES.”
FAR FROM D.C., BUT FURTHER FROM THE BAY? — The chasm between Washington’s regulators and Silicon Valley’s executives about protecting consumers’ privacy was abundantly evident at a series of CES sessions Tuesday:
— FTC chief threatens to drop the hammer: Chairman Joe Simons fired a shot across the bow of Facebook and Google, two tech titans that have faced historic fines from his agency in recent months — and warned that even tougher consequences are coming if the online giants don’t course-correct on privacy. “If they continue to do what they were doing in the past and violate the privacy laws, then they can expect that the repercussions will be even more severe," he said during an afternoon one-on-one discussion.
— Silicon Valley, D.C. have a tense meeting of the minds: Sitting onstage just feet away from Erin Egan and Jane Horvath, the top privacy officers for Facebook and Apple, Democratic FTC Commissioner Rebecca Kelly Slaughter offered a rebuke when asked if the consumer tech industry is taking enough steps to safeguard users’ data. “Just the fact that almost every day when we read the newspaper we see different concerning stories about privacy or security breaches. It would be impossible to conclude that enough is being done,” she said.
Asked that same question, Horvath said companies “should always be doing more” but touted Apple’s efforts to boost privacy protections. Egan echoed those remarks, citing changes that Facebook is making as part of its $5 billion privacy settlement with the FTC.
— But they were more divided on whether user data online is safe. “I think privacy is protected today for people, yes,” Egan said in response to a question. Slaughter declined to comment specifically on Facebook, but offered a wholly different take: “As a general matter, no I don’t think privacy is generally protected.”
ONE THING THEY ALL AGREED ON — Tech executives, federal regulators and other participants found universal agreement that Congress should pass a consumer privacy law, and fast. “I think it really is time for Congress to think about whether we should do something more modern. … We think it’s time,” Simons said. Slaughter similarly supported the push, which has stalled on Capitol Hill amid partisan disagreements over whether a bill should override state standards and allow consumers to sue companies over privacy mishaps.
— Unanswered questions: Simons said it could make sense to have a single national standard (something tech companies want), but called it possible that state standards will be sufficiently in harmony. And he urged Congress to take into account how privacy legislation may help tech giants, like Facebook, Google, Apple and Amazon, who have more resources to devote to compliance. “One of the things we’re particularly worried about is legislation that would simply entrench the big dominant tech platforms and disadvantage the new players,” he said.
— Our colleague David Pierce, at Protocol, noted that the afternoon privacy panel also featured a rare area of agreement on encryption, an issue that has pitted privacy safeguards from companies like Apple against federal law enforcement’s demands for access to data.
Apple’s Horvath said health and payment data are crucial things to keep private, one argument for strong encryption: "We need to make sure if you misplace your device, you're not losing your sensitive data." Slaughter followed up: "While I am really sensitive to the desire for a backdoor for good, legal reasons, you can't create a backdoor for the good guys that doesn't also create a backdoor for the bad guys."
FTC LEADERS NOT FEELING WARREN’S ‘BREAK UP BIG TECH’ PLAN — The commissioners, whose agency shares antitrust duties with the Justice Department, expressed skepticism about Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren ’s campaign proposal to break up Facebook, Google, Apple and Amazon. Republican Commissioner Christine Wilson said that’s “not an approach that I would embrace.” She added, “If we are going to take action it needs to be on the basis of an antitrust investigation."
— No magic wands: Slaughter said singling out companies to break up isn’t how modern antitrust law works, though she noted that Warren has proposed amending such statutes. “Our antitrust laws do not allow us to wave a magic wand and say, we don’t like you, we will break you up,” she said.
David and Janko Roettgers from Protocol spoke to Amazon's head of devices and services, Dave Limp, about what’s next for Alexa — beyond, you know, timers and music. And it’s things like recipes, audiobooks and even general knowledge questions.
Oh, and a lot of screen time. One surprise Alexa hit for Amazon has been the continuing success of the Fire TV. Apple TV+ and Disney+ both led to more Fire TV sales than expected — and with HBO Max, Peacock and others coming this year, sales could keep growing.
Amazon is also working fast on privacy issues — but not fast enough, Limp said. He'd like to go back in time to add more centralized privacy controls for Alexa and Ring, and implement two-factor authentication to help prevent hackings like the ones that have plagued Ring recently.
Elsewhere at CES: A plane flew over the Las Vegas Convention Center, writing a message in the sky: "SURRENDER 5G SKEPTICS." As good a slogan for CES 2020 as anything else we've seen.
CHAO TO DEBUT UPDATED GUIDANCE ON DRIVERLESS CARS — Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao will unveil the fourth iteration of the agency’s guidance on driverless cars during a keynote address at 11:30 a.m. PST Wednesday. That will be followed by a conversation between her and U.S. Chief Technology Officer Michael Kratsios, who is expected to discuss the administration’s recently announced guidelines on artificial intelligence.
OTHER SESSIONS TO WATCH — Issa, Internet Association President Michael Beckerman and others will participate in a roundtable discussion on “The Global Race for Leadership in AI.” Energy Secretary Dan Brouillette will speak about "The Greatest Innovative Nation.” Two separate sessions will tackle one of tech’s thorniest policy debates: the online industry’s legal liability shield, Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. U.S. Patent and Trademark Office chief Andrei Iancu will partake in a one-on-one interview. Plus, more sessions will take up online privacy, 5G, vehicle automation and more. We’ll be tracking. Stay tuned.
2020-01-08 01:50:00Z
https://www.politico.com/newsletters/politico-tech-at-ces/2020/01/07/ivanka-talks-tech-488008
Bagikan Berita Ini
0 Response to "Ivanka Trump talks tech - Politico"
Post a Comment