Op-Ed: How Trump can unleash US energy and abundance

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Washington Examiner op-ed published November 12, 2025. “Increasing oil and natural gas production is absolutely the right place to start, but Trump needs to think far more expansively. People are counting on him to unleash energy in far more groundbreaking ways — ways that can fundamentally transform daily life for the better.”

Interview: Can Scarlett Johansson Stop AI Sounding Like Her? Free Press

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Excerpt: For an argument about the use of cutting-edge technology, the Johansson-Altman bust-up evokes a case from the 1980s, says Taylor Barkley, director of public policy at the Abundance Institute, a think tank that specializes in AI and other emerging technologies. In the 1980s, Ford wanted to use Bette Midler’s voice in an advertisement. When … Read more

Research: The AI Technopanic and Its Effects

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The Abundance Institute published a long form analysis I wrote with Dr. Nirit Weiss-Blatt and Adam Thierer examining the panic over AI in the media and the negative effects that has and could have on policymaking. Read the full paper here.

New York Post Op-ed: New privacy laws may hurt small businesses most

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“‘Privacy’ is a fashionable term among both federal and state lawmakers because it is one of the few policy objectives that generally curries favor on both the left and the right.  For this reason, the grandly named American Privacy Rights Act (APRA) has momentum in Congress. If approved, APRA would erect a complicated new web … Read more

Research: Public Interest Comment for the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) on the Initiative to Protect Youth Mental Health, Safety and Privacy Online

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My colleague Aubrey Kirchhoff and I submitted an official comment to a federal agency proceeding that asked a range of questions about the research connecting social media use to declining mental health, the role of social media companies, and solutions the agency could recommend. Read our comment at thecgo.org.