US election 2024: Where does Kamala Harris stand on regulating big tech and AI?

During her career as a prosecutor, Harris launched a data transparency project called OpenJustice which is a public platform that serves as a record of interactions between law enforcement officials and community members. The dashboard was reportedly built by combining the statistical data of the California Department of Justice with other public datasets.

In 2016, Harris was elected to the US Senate where she introduced a bill called the Digital Service Act that proposed to provide funds to state and local governments so that they could establish their own tech units.

In 2018, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg appeared before the US Senate Judiciary Committee to answer questions about how the tech giant handles users’ private data in the context of the Cambridge Analytica controversy. One of the lawmakers to quiz Zuckerberg was Harris who pointed out that the billionaire CEO had not answered key questions such as, whether Facebook users continue to be tracked even after logging off or if Facebook could access users’ browser histories.

“You’ve been asked several critical questions for which you don’t have answers,” Harris told Zuckerberg.

While Harris was not reluctant to rebuke tech CEOs as a senator, she faced criticism for not doing enough to curb big tech dominance in her role as California’s attorney general. In fact, a Huffington Post report found thousands of emails that reportedly demonstrate Harris’ soft touch approach towards big tech companies.

What is Kamala Harris’ approach to AI, tech policy?

While she has openly called for more regulation of tech giants such as Meta, Harris has also been hesitant in supporting calls for the breakup of such companies. “I believe that the tech companies have got to be regulated in a way that we can ensure and the American consumer can be certain that their privacy is not being compromised,” she had told The New York Times in a 2020 interview.

Interestingly, Harris does not support banning the popular social media app TikTok in the country. “We need to deal with the owner, and we have national security concerns about the owner of TikTok, but we have no intention to ban TikTok,” she had said in an interview with ABC News this year.

Harris’ views on cryptocurrency are not very well known; though, she could continue to follow the same regulatory approach as the Biden administration. But she has been fairly vocal when it comes to artificial intelligence (AI), specifically expressing concerns about the more immediate threats that AI poses to society.

“Let us be clear, there are additional threats that also demand our action. Threats that are currently causing harm, and which to many people also feel existential… when people around the world cannot discern fact from fiction because of a flood of AI enabled myths and disinformation. I ask, is that not existential for democracy?” the 59-year-old vice president had said during the AI safety summit held in the UK last year.

In 2023, President Biden passed a sweeping executive order that called for companies to set new standards around the development of AI. As part of the Biden administration, Harris also announced new directives for US government agencies that require them to appoint chief AI officers, publish a list of AI systems they use, and ensure that these AI systems do not endanger the rights and safety of the American people.

Harris has reportedly enjoyed the support of several Silicon Valley venture capitalists such as John Doerr and Ron Conway. Since launching her 2024 bid, she has bagged the endorsement of LinkedIn cofounder Reid Hoffman, Netflix chairman Reed Hastings, and billionaire entrepreneur Mark Cuban, among others.