An observation that I have a feeling you'll disagree with: We haven't had these rules in place for roughly six years now and, I think, for a lot of people, the internet does not seem radically different. So why does this fight still matter? Well, I think we’ve got to be careful on what we define as the challenge that we're trying to meet here. The industry wants to define it in terms of no blocking and no throttling. I mean, that is so much yesterday's issue. The broader question here is, will there be an ongoing expectation [of fairness] for all of the activities of this really important 21st century network? And will there be flexibility on the part of the FCC to deal with those? Technology has evolved even as some of these regulatory dynamics remain the same. When the net neutrality rules were last repealed in late 2017, no one was really talking about artificial intelligence at the time. You now think it's a major factor. This is a history of technological and marketplace evolution, starting with the telegraph, going up through the early digital era, where it was all about video. And now we've got AI, and access to AI requires access to the last mile [of internet]. How can you be a small businessman and enjoy the benefits of AI in your business if all of a sudden that last mile says, "Oh no, wait a minute, I'm going to make sure that it has to come to you on my terms," rather than an expectation that it be on just and reasonable terms? The thing that we can absolutely, positively be sure of is this isn't going to stop with AI. We didn't know, in 2015, about AI. We don't know what's coming tomorrow. But we do know that there are basic principles. Do you have just and reasonable access on nondiscriminatory terms to the most important network of the 21st century and the ability to deal with whatever technology the marketplace throws at you in the future? I don't think there are very many people who know more about net neutrality than you do. It was interesting to me then, in a piece written recently for Brookings, you actually asked ChatGPT-4 to answer why net neutrality matters in an AI era. What did it say? I'm going to read to you right now what ChatGPT told me. I said, "How does AI change the importance of net neutrality?" And ChatGPT responded, "As AI continues to evolve and become more integral in our daily lives, maintaining an open and equal internet becomes even more crucial. Net neutrality not only supports the equitable development and deployment of AI, but also ensures the benefits of AI technologies are accessible to all. Promoting innovation, fairness and competition in the digital age." What did you think of that answer? Were you surprised? I thought it was spot on. My takeaway from that and the piece that I wrote in Brookings that you referenced really was saying, "We have a different deliverable, but the issues of that delivery have not changed." One thing we know about AI is that it is going to put greater demands on internet infrastructure, from data centers and networks, to the energy needed to power all of it. So I could see an argument that internet service providers should be able to charge more for that if it's demanding more of their networks. So I don't know about you, but when I wanted to increase the throughput to my internet service to my home, I got charged more. Nothing wrong with that. I am in favor of the companies being able to charge for the level of service that the consumer wants. But I've got a difficulty when they turn around and say, and now I am running the toll bridge and you gotta pay the toll to me before you can get to that consumer. You also acknowledge the leading AI companies are not exactly wallflowers. Google, Microsoft and Amazon have for years now been some of the wealthiest companies in the world. They are emerging as dominant players in AI. I certainly think of them as formidable counterweights to internet providers like Comcast or Verizon. Why does the government need to get involved if this is a bunch of big companies battling it out? Well, the difficulty is that when the elephants rumble, the ants get squashed. The job of the government is to stand up for the public interest, not to stand by as private interests engage in a 'Godzilla vs. Kong' kind of situation. Because I don't know if you've been to see that movie, but I saw it the other weekend, and all I can say to you is that Rome, the pyramids, Paris, everybody got destroyed. And so, a solution to how do you protect the public interest in the digital era is not to have "Godzilla vs. Kong."
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