With President Joe Biden dropping out of the race, Vice President Kamala Harris could change into the Democrats’ new nominee.
In asserting his plans, Biden provided his “full support and endorsement for Kamala to be the nominee of our party this year,” whereas Harris mentioned her “intention is to win and earn this nomination.” That mentioned, it’s not clear whether or not different Democratic politicians will problem her for the nomination at an open conference, or via another choice course of.
If Harris is chosen, the Democrats can have a presidential nominee with roots within the Bay Area — she was born in Oakland — and an extended relationship with the tech trade. (Donald Trump’s working mate JD Vance can be deeply related to Silicon Valley.) She was San Francisco’s district lawyer, then California’s lawyer common, earlier than being elected to the Senate in 2016.
VCs like John Doerr and Ron Conway have been amongst her early supporters, and as a presidential candidate, she was rapidly endorsed by LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman. Other trade figures, together with Netflix co-founder Reed Hastings, have been extra circumspect or known as for an open conference.
Some of the trade’s critics have complained that she didn’t do sufficient as lawyer common to curb the ability of tech giants as they grew.
At the identical time, she has been prepared to criticize tech CEOs and name for extra regulation. As a senator, she pressed the large social networks over misinformation. During the 2020 presidential marketing campaign, when rival Elizabeth Warren was calling for the breakup of huge tech, Harris was requested whether or not corporations like Amazon, Google, and Facebook must be damaged up. She as an alternative mentioned they need to be “regulated in a way that we can ensure the American consumer can be certain that their privacy is not being compromised.”
As vice chairman, Harris has additionally spoken in regards to the potential for regulating AI, saying that she and President Biden “reject the false choice that suggests we can either protect the public or advance innovation.”
Biden had issued an government order calling for corporations to set new requirements across the improvement of AI, and Harris mentioned these “voluntary commitments are an initial step toward a safer AI future with more to come, because, as history has shown, in the absence of regulation and strong government oversight, some technology companies choose to prioritize profit over the wellbeing of their customers, the safety of our communities, and the stability of our democracies.”
Venture capitalists Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz not too long ago pointed to issues that the Biden Administration will “overregulate” AI as one in all their causes for supporting Donald Trump.
On one other scorching button difficulty, a current invoice that will ban TikTok if its mum or dad firm ByteDance doesn’t promote it, Harris mentioned, “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.”
Harris has been much less vocal on the problems round cryptocurrency, although she would presumably help the Biden Administration’s crypto laws.
