Why politicians need to get over their tech insecurity

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The writer is a fellow at Stanford University’s Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence and the Cyber Policy Center. She is the author of ‘The Tech Coup’

Look at the news cycle and it seems as if everyone is talking about AI and technology regulation. That is certainly the case in my bubble. But despite dominating headlines, technology barely ranks among voters’ top policy priorities and many politicians remain reluctant to engage with tech policy. The gap between the societal impact of tech and the modest political attention it receives leaves critical decisions being made without democratic input.

That needs to change. After all, the consequences touch all of us. AI companies promote efficiency gains while reports from the likes of the World Bank and International Labor Organisation warn of significant job losses. There are few kitchen tables where children and parents aren’t discussing smartphone use and no boardroom — or war room — where AI isn’t being considered as threat or opportunity.

Yet despite technology’s wide-ranging impact, from national security to information access to public service provision, it is often not regarded as a political issue. Voters prioritise economic growth, housing and migration. While these issues are undeniably important, so is the impact of technology.

One reason I hear from politicians around the world on why they hesitate to talk tech is their own insecurity. They worry that without deep engineering knowledge, they might say something technically inadequate that goes viral and invites ridicule. This fear isn’t surprising. After Mark Zuckerberg’s Capitol Hill hearing in 2018, media coverage focused more on lawmakers’ technological ignorance than Facebook’s data sharing practices. One CNN headline read: “How the Senate’s tech illiteracy saved Mark Zuckerberg.” At a critical moment for tech governance, scorn left lawmakers timid, or intimidated. 

Silicon Valley exploits this insecurity, dismissing politicians’ lack of understanding as grounds for excluding them from debate. But this logic is flawed. Most elected officials are not lawyers, yet they are entrusted with writing and amending law. We don’t require parliamentarians to have medical degrees before proposing healthcare standards, scientific degrees before making environmental policies, or mechanical expertise before setting traffic rules. Leaders make judgments based on their values and constituents’ needs — not technical minutiae.

Besides, a lot of questions that are considered technical are really moral. Should AI systems be allowed to make life-or-death medical decisions? How much surveillance should governments conduct on their citizens? What happens when social media algorithms radicalise teenagers? Should companies be allowed to experiment on user reactions without consent?

Technology that impacts all sectors and all people requires broader engagement than we see today. Tech policy should be a political priority. We should not limit the debate to computer scientists and politicians should not be made to feel dumb because they do not understand all of the technical details.

We need to politicise technology. Not in the partisan sense, but in the democratic one. We need elected officials who see tech policy as central to their job, not a specialised niche. We need public debates about AI governance that go beyond technical jargon to examine fundamental questions about power, justice and human agency. Non-experts bring perspectives that matter: as parents concerned about their children’s digital lives, as workers facing automation, as patients trusting AI-powered medical systems, and as voters whose information environment is being shaped by algorithmic feeds.

Technology is too significant to leave to corporate stakeholders. Should the future be shaped by the values of a few tech executives or by the democratic will of the people? The choice is ours, but only if we make it a political priority.