Bruce Schneier: It’s time for technologists to become lawmakers

Dean Takahashi:

Bruce Schneier, a well-known security guru, called on technologists to become lawmakers and policy makers so countries can deal with issues such as the governance of artificial intelligence and cybersecurity.

Schneier teaches at the Harvard Kennedy School of government, and he said the place is crawling with economists because they were able to answer many of the questions that arose in the 20th century. But in the 21st century, change is happening faster, and it’s driven by technology.

“The future is coming,” Schneier said, speaking at the RSA security conference in San Francisco. “It’s coming faster than we think. And it’s coming faster than our existing policy tools can deal with. And the only way to fix this is to develop a new set of policy tools. With the help of the technologists, you understand the technologies.”

The issues are a lot larger than just computer security. Schneier wants more public interest technologists in all areas.

Back in the 1950s, tech and policy didn’t really interact, unless it had to do with something like nuclear weapons or the space program. Today, tech and policy are intertwined, Schneier said.