Eye-tracking technology now makes it possible for computers to gather staggering amounts of information about individuals as they use the Internet, and draw hyper-accurate conclusions about our behavior as consumers. As the technology becomes more practical, Senior Fellow John Villasenor discusses its benefits and risks.

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• Eye-Tracking Technology and Digital Privacy

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• @ Brookings Podcast: Eye-Tracking Technology and Digital Privacy

The weakness of the economic recovery in advanced economies raises questions about the ability of new technologies to drive growth. After all, in the years since the global financial crisis, consumers in advanced economies have adopted new technologies such as mobile Internet services, and companies have invested in big data and cloud computing. More than 1 billion smartphones have been sold around the world, making it one of the most rapidly adopted technologies ever. Yet nations such as the United States that lead the world in technology adoption are seeing only middling GDP growth and continue to struggle with high unemployment.

There are many reasons for the restrained expansion, not least of which is the severity of the recession, which wiped out trillions of dollars of wealth and more than 7 million US jobs. Relatively weak consumer demand since the end of the recession in 2009 has restrained hiring and there are also structural issues at play, including a growing mismatch between the increasingly technical needs of employers and the skills available in the labor force. And technology itself plays a role: companies continue to invest in labor-saving technologies that reduce demand for less-skilled workers.

So are we witnessing a failure of technology? Our answer is "no." Over the longer term, in fact, we see that technology continues to drive productivity and growth, a pattern that has been evident since the Industrial Revolution; steam power, mass-produced steel, and electricity drove successive waves of growth, which has continued into the 21st century with semiconductors and the Internet. Today, we see a dozen rapidly-evolving technology areas that have the potential for economic disruption as well in the next decade. They fall into four groups: IT and how we use it; machines that work for us; energy; and the building blocks of everything (next-gen genomics and synthetic biology).

Wide ranging impacts

These disruptive technologies not only have potential for economic impact—hundreds of billions per year and even trillions for the applications we have sized—but also are broad-based (affecting many people and industries) and have transformative effects: they can alter the status quo and create opportunities for new competitors.

While these technologies will contribute to productivity and growth, we must look at economic impact in a broader sense, which includes measures of surplus created and value shifted (for instance from producers to consumers, which has been a common result of Internet adoption). The greatest benefit we measured for autonomous vehicles—cars and trucks that can proceed from point A to point B with little or no human intervention. The largest economic impact we sized for autonomous vehicles is the enormous benefit to consumers that may be possible by reducing accidents caused by human error by 70 to 90 percent. That could translate into hundreds of billions a year in economic value by 2025.

Predicting how quickly even the most disruptive technologies will affect productivity is difficult. When the first commercial microprocessor appeared there was no such thing as a microcomputer—marketers at Intel thought traffic signal controllers might be a leading application for their chip. Today we see that social technologies, which have changed how people interact with friends and family and have provided new ways for marketers to connect with consumers, may have a much larger impact as a way to raise productivity in organizations by improving communication, knowledge-sharing, and collaboration.

There are also lags and displacements as new technologies are adopted and their effects on productivity are felt. Over the next decade, advances in robotics may make it possible to automate assembly jobs that require more dexterity than machines have provided or are assumed to be more economical to carry out with low-cost labor. Advances in artificial intelligence, big data, and user interfaces (e.g., computers that can interpret ordinary speech) make it possible to automate many knowledge worker tasks.

More good than bad

There are clearly challenges for societies and economies as disruptive technologies take hold, but the long-term effects, we believe, will continue to be higher productivity and growth across sectors and nations. In earlier work, for example, we looked at the relationship between productivity and employment, which are generally believed to be in conflict (i.e., when productivity rises, employment falls). And clearly, in the short term this can happen as employers find that they can substitute machinery for labor—especially if other innovations in the economy do not create demand for labor in other areas. However, if you look at the data for productivity and employment for longer periods—over decades, for example—you see that productivity and job growth do rise in tandem.

This does not mean that labor-saving technologies do not cause dislocations, but they also eventually create new opportunities. For example, the development of highly flexible and adaptable robots will require skilled workers on the shop floor who can program these machines and work out new routines as requirements change. And the same types of tools that can be used to automate knowledge worker tasks such as finding information can also be used to augment the powers of knowledge workers, potentially creating new types of jobs.

Over the next decade it will become clearer how these technologies will be used to raise productivity and growth. There will be surprises along the way—when mass-produced steel became practical in the 19th century nobody could predict how it would enable the automobile industry in the 20th. And there will be societal challenges that policy makers will need to address, for example by making sure that educational systems keep up with the demands of the new technologies.

For business leaders the emergence of disruptive technologies can open up great new possibilities and can also lead to new threats—disruptive technologies have a habit of creating new competitors and undermining old business models. Incumbents will want to ensure their organizations continue to look forward and think long-term. Leaders themselves will need to know how technologies work and see to it that tech- and IT-savvy employees are included in every function and every team. Businesses and other institutions will need new skill sets and cannot assume that the talent they need will be available in the labor market.

Policy makers at all levels, federal and state and local governments, are depositing great faith in innovation as a driver of economic growth and job creation. In the knowledge economy, universities have been called to play a central role as knowledge producers. Universities are actively seeking to accommodate those public demands and many have engaged an ongoing review of their educational programs and their research portfolios to make them more attuned to industrial needs. Technology transfer is a function that universities are seeking to make more efficient in order to better engage with the economy.

By law, universities can elect to take title to patents from federally funded research and then license them to the private sector. For years, the dominant model of technology transfer has been to market university patents with commercial promise to prospect partners in industry. Under this model, very few universities have been able to command high licensing fees while the vast majority has never won the lottery of a “blockbuster” patent. Most technology transfer offices are cost centers for their universities.

However, upon further inspection, the winners of this apparent lottery seem to be an exclusive club. Over the last decade only 37 universities have shuffled in the top 20 of the licensing revenue ranking. What is more, 5 of the top 20 were barely covering the expenses of their tech transfer offices; the rest were not even making ends meet.[i] It may seem that the blockbuster patent lottery is rigged. See more detail in my Brookings report.

That appearance is due to the fact that landing a patent of high commercial value is highly dependent on the resources available to universities. Federal research funding is a good proxy variable to measure those resources. Figure 1 below shows side by side federal funding and net operating income of tech transfer offices. If high licensing revenues are a lottery; then it is one in which only universities with the highest federal funding can participate. Commercial patents may require a critical mass of investment to build the capacity to produce breakthrough discoveries that are at the same time mature enough for the private investors to take an interest.

Figure 1. A rigged lottery?

High federal research funding is the ticket to enter the blockbuster patent lottery

Source: Author elaboration with AUTM data (2013) [ii]

But now, let’s turn onto another view of the asymmetry of resources and licensing revenues of  universities; the geographical dimension. In Figure 2 we can appreciate the degree of dispersion (or concentration) of both, federal research investment and licensing revenue, across the states. It is easy to recognize the well-funded universities on the East and West coast receiving most of federal funds, and it is easy to observe as well that it is around the same regions, albeit more scattered, that licensing revenues are high.

If policymakers are serious about fostering innovation, it is time to discuss the asymmetries of resources among universities across the nation. Licensing revenues is a poor measure of technology transfer activity, because universities engage in a number of interactions with the private sector that do not involve patent licensing contracts. However, this data hints at the larger challenge: If universities are expected to be engines of growth for their regions and if technology transfer is to be streamlined, federal support must be allocated by mechanisms that balance the needs across states. This is not to suggest that research funding should be reallocated from top universities to the rest; that would be misguided policy. But it does suggest that without reform, the engines of growth will not roar throughout the nation, only in a few places.

Figure 2. Tech Transfer Activites Depend on Resources

Bubbles based on Metropolitan Statistical Areas and propotional to size of the variable

Recently the University of Massachusetts Amherst courted controversy when it announced that it would not admit Iranian students into some programs in the College of Engineering and in the College of Natural Sciences. The rule sought to comply with sanctions on Iran, but facing strong criticism from faculty and students the university reversed itself and replaced the ban with a more flexible policy that would craft a special curriculum for Iranian students in the fields relevant to the ban. It is not yet clear how that policy will be implemented, but what has become patently clear is that a blanket ban on students by national origin is a transgression of the principles of an open society including academic freedom. Very rarely will the knowledge created and taught at universities present a security risk that justifies the outright exclusion of an entire nationality from participating in the research and learning enterprise.

A controversial ban

Section 501 of the Iran Threat Reduction and Syria Human Rights Act of 2012 explicitly denies visas to Iranian nationals seeking study in fields related to nuclear engineering or the energy sector. After the controversy and in consultation with the State Department, the university replaced the ban for a policy of “individualized study plans” for Iranian students in the sanctioned fields. Questions remain as to the practicality of crafting study plans that exclude the kind of knowledge Iranians are not supposed to learn. One can imagine the inherent difficulty of asking some students to skip a few chapters of the textbook or to take a coffee break outside the lab when certain experiments are conducted.

In a recent column, philosopher Behnam Taebi reminded us of a similar controversy when the Dutch government tried to restrict admission of Iranian students. He offers a valuable lesson from both experiences: “the Iranian academic community has traditionally been a bastion of reformism—a tendency Western governments and universities have every interest in encouraging” and correctly concludes that a ban of Iranian students is self-defeating.

Universities export knowledge and values

The costs of constraining technology transfer could indeed outweigh the benefits of study programs that entail technical and cultural exchange at the same time. American universities export knowledge and technology but also they export American values.

Surely, not all values for export are exactly the height of civilization. Skeptics may point out that conspicuous consumption and reality TV are not worth disseminating but these critics would do well recalling that neither social posing nor voyeurism were invented in the U.S.; what we see here are just new bottles for very old wine. In contrast, the best values for export are those of the American political tradition. Living in the U.S. affords international students a regular exposure to that tradition in informal settings such as community life and churchgoing, and in more formal ones, through the stupendous collections of university libraries and the campus curriculum on American history and political thought.

Aside of the lofty and the frivolous, however, there are a few values that are inherent to university life. Of course, the U.S. does not have a monopoly on those values—they are inherent to all universities in stable democracies—but they are certainly part of the experience of any international student. Consider these three:

Stability: Students appreciate the relative quietude of university life. In the U.S., most campuses are physically designed as a refuge from the frantic pace of modern life and provide the peace and safety necessary to allow the mind to concentrate, grow, and discover. Students coming from countries troubled by political instability and conflict are able to stop worrying about questions of subsistence or survival and can devote their attention to solve the puzzles of nature and society.

Meritocracy: Another value characteristic of academia is meritocracy. The system has its flaws but academia more than other walks of life assigns rewards based on clear standards of performance. There are systemic problems and no absence of prejudice, but hard work and talent tend to be given their due.

Social awareness: A third value is a collective concern with public affairs in the local, national, and global spheres. Not everyone in the academic community is socially engaged, but within campus there is a steady supply of debate on contemporary issues and ample opportunity for voluntary work. Visitors will find it easy to engage friends and colleagues in relevant debates and join them in meaningful action on and off campus.

Technology transfer is good diplomacy

Many international students remain in the U.S. after concluding their training but they also keep ties to their families and scientific communities in their countries of origin. Others return home and may seek to reproduce there the stability, meritocracy, and engagement with social issues that were constitutive of their time at an American university. Some will seek reform within their own universities and a few will go further and press for reform to their country's political system. Spreading the values of academic life in democratic societies is a legitimate and powerful approach to spreading democratic values around the world.

Technology transfer as a term of art has evolved to recognize the two-way exchange of knowledge between research and industrial organizations. Likewise, values move both ways and international students enrich American life by injecting their spheres with their own values for export. The policy of American universities of remaining open to all nationalities is both instrument and symbol of an open society. Technology transfer by means of advanced training is indeed good diplomacy.

Event Information

Technology unimaginable at the time of the nation’s founding now poses stark challenges to America’s core constitutional principles. Policymakers and legal scholars are closely examining how constitutional law is tested by technological change and how to preserve constitutional principles without hindering progress. In Constitution 3.0: Freedom and Technological Change (Brookings Institution Press, 2011), Governance Studies Senior Fellow Benjamin Wittes and Nonresident Senior Fellow Jeffrey Rosen asked a diverse group of leading scholars to imagine how technological developments plausible by the year 2025 could stress current constitutional law. The resulting essays explore scenarios involving information technology, genetic engineering, security, privacy and beyond.

On December 13, the Governance Studies program at Brookings hosted a Judicial Issues Forum examining the scenarios posed in Constitution 3.0 and the challenge of adapting our constitutional values to the technology of the near future. Wittes and Rosen offered key highlights and insights from the book and was joined by two key contributors, O. Carter Snead and Timothy Wu, who discussed their essays.

After the program, panelists took audience questions.

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Although we are early in the twenty-first century, breathtaking changes in technology are posing stark challenges to our constitutional values. From free speech to privacy, from liberty and personal autonomy to the right against self-incrimination, basic constitutional principles are under stress from technological advances unimaginable even a few decades ago, let alone during the founding era. In Constitution 3.0, we asked a group of provocative thinkers to imagine the ways in which technological change will challenge our constitutional and legal values in the year 2030.

Will privacy become obsolete, for example, in a world where ubiquitous surveillance is becoming the norm? Imagine that Facebook and Google post live feeds to public and private surveillance cameras, allowing 24/7 tracking of any citizen in the world. How can we protect free speech now that Facebook, Google, and other private intermediaries have more power than any king, president, or Supreme Court justice to decide who can speak and who can be heard? How will advanced brain-scan technology affect the constitutional right against self-incrimination? And on a more elemental level, should people have the right to manipulate their genes and design their own babies? Should we be allowed to patent new forms of life that seem virtually human? And we then asked our contributors to propose ways of translating and preserving constitutional values in the year 2030, in the face of dizzying technological change.

The launch event for the book, held on December 13 at Brookings, provoked a vigorous conversation that mirrored the debates in the book itself. My co-editor Ben Wittes and I invited Tim Wu and Carter Snead to discuss their contributions to Constitution 3.0 and to debate a question the U.S. Supreme Court is now considering: should the police be allowed, without a valid warrant, to secretly put a Global Positioning System device on the bottom of a car of a suspected drug dealer in order to track his movements, 24/7, for a month? The panelists disagreed about the proper outcome: Tim Wu argued that Google and Facebook now have more power over our private data than any police agent or Supreme Court justice, and yet the Constitution, as currently interpreted, restricts private corporations far less rigorously than it constrains the police. Carter Snead insisted that it’s not enough for judges to predict how much privacy people actually expect in the face of new technologies; instead, they need to identify how much privacy we should demand in order to live in a free society rather than a police state. Benjamin Wittes dissented, arguing that Congress, rather than the Courts, should protect the privacy of our geo-locational information, whether collected by GPS devices or stored on cell phones. And I channeled the spirit of the patron saint of Constitution 3.0, Justice Louis Brandeis. Brandeis would have been impatient, I think, with the government’s statements that we have no expectations of privacy in public; instead, Brandeis would have insisted on translating the constitutional Framers’ prohibition on unreasonable searches and seizures into the 21st century. Now that GPS devices and cell phones can reveal far more about our movements, thoughts, and activities outside of the home than old style home break-ins could have revealed in the 18th century, Brandeis might have insisted that long term surveillance is unreasonable without a warrant.

If you watch the webcast, you’ll get a sense of debate among the panelists about who is best equipped to protect constitutional values in the face of new technologies: the Supreme Court, Congress, administrative agencies, private companies like Google and Facebook, political activism groups, or some combination of all of the above. Regardless of where you come out on these issues, I hope you’ll find the project of trying to imagine the constitutional challenges of the next few decades as challenging and rewarding as we did in writing the book.