Barefoot Innovation Podcast

From time to time, we have a conversation that is so densely packed with insight and information and moments of surprise that it’s impossible to summarize it in my introduction. Today’s show is in that category. For everyone interested in how technology — AI especially — is changing finance (and everything), this one is a must-listen. It’s an extraordinarily thoughtful and thought-provoking conversation with Congressman Bill Foster, who represents the 11th District of Illinois. (This is our second show with him — here’s the first.)

The Congressman is one of the most consequential technology leaders on Capitol Hill, in general and particularly on technology that impacts the financial sector. He serves on the House Financial Services Committee and is the ranking member of one of its major subcommittees. He has led and served on multiple key caucuses and task forces dealing with tech issues. As he explains, he is, himself, a scientist — a PhD physicist whose work has had lasting effects. And he has also been an entrepreneur.

We mainly talk about AI, on everything from his efforts to prevent smuggling of smart chips into China, to his concern that we might be approaching the arrival of AGI — artificial general intelligence, and the Singularity — sooner than has been predicted. He says he has been shifting from net optimist to alarmist, as he watches AI evolve. 

On the upside, though, he offers one of the best narratives I’ve ever heard on the potential of AI to help people solve hard problems in their daily lives, including the ability to see through fraudulent or hyped-up product offers. He speculates a bit on what that business model might look like. He also predicts that this massive empowerment of consumers will have big impacts in narrowing profit margins, and impacts on businesses that exist to steer us toward bad options. (We at AIR have been making this same prediction, including that such AI agents would need to be required to be optimized to be solely devoted to the consumer’s best interest, with no secondary agendas.)

A great deal of today’s show revolves around the need for digital identity, and here, it seems fair to say that Congressman Foster is optimistic. As he notes, this issue has been stuck for years, caught between privacy concerns on both the left and right. He thinks those may be abating today, because we are reaching a stage where, even though new technology threatens privacy, it can also be harnessed to safeguard it. At AIR, we have been doing extensive work on digital identity. We think it is like a skeleton key that can help unlock three huge problems — financial inclusion, fraud/money laundering, and, yes, privacy. Maybe its time has come. Congressman Foster shares his thoughts on what the pathway might look like.

You’ll also be interested in his views on the outlook for the U.S. to adopt legislative measures to regulate technology in areas like privacy and AI.

Let me note, also, that Congressman Bill Foster is one of the cosponsors of the bipartisan FUTURES Act, which has been approved by the House committee and would require some of the federal financial regulators to self-evaluate their readiness to oversee the technology transformation that’s underway in finance. (Note that we previously had an episode with the bill’s lead sponsor, Representative Erin Houchin).

We recorded this conversation in the Congressman’s office. On the wall beside us was a framed photograph showing an aerial view of the Antiproton Recycler Ring, at the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, near Chicago. He was a particle accelerator designer at Fermilab, where he helped to discover the top quark, the heaviest known form of matter. He also led the teams that developed several scientific facilities and detectors still in use today, including the Antiproton Recycler Ring, which is the newest of Fermilab's giant particle accelerators. As he says in our discussion, he brings the eye of a scientist and engineer to public policy. 

I think we will benefit from having more political leaders who do.

More on Congressman Bill Foster

Congressman Bill Foster is a scientist and businessman representing the 11th Congressional District of Illinois, a position he’s held since 2013. He also represented the 14th Congressional District of Illinois from 2008 to 2011. He is the only PhD physicist in Congress.

Bill serves on the House Financial Services Committee where he advocates for consumer protections and an economy that works for everyone. In response to the Great Recession, he helped create several important reforms in the financial services and housing markets, including the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. He currently serves as the Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on Financial Institutions and Monetary Policy.

Bill previously served on the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee where he championed for evidence-based policies and forward-thinking approaches to pressing issues, including climate change and energy innovation. Bill is a strong advocate for sustained federal funding for scientific research.

He also served as the chairman of the Science Committee’s Investigations and Oversight Subcommittee, which is empowered to investigate and oversee federal scientific research.

Bill’s business career began at age 19 when he and his younger brother co-founded Electronic Theatre Controls, Inc., a company that now manufactures over half of the theater lighting equipment in the United States.

Before he became a Member of Congress, Bill worked as a high-energy physicist and particle accelerator designer at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab). He was a member of the team that discovered the top quark, the heaviest known form of matter. He also led the teams that designed and built several scientific facilities and detectors still in use today, including the Antiproton Recycler Ring, the latest of Fermilab’s giant particle accelerators.

More for Our Listeners

We have wonderful episodes coming up. We have a great show with Jane Barratt of MX, talking about the imminent finalization of consumer data privacy rules by the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. We have an episode with Saket Narayan of Amazon, discussing modern technology applications required by regulators. We’ll have a fascinating conversation with Soups Ranjan of Sardine, on fraud (AIR is doing several major projects on fraud). We have a show coming up with Daniel Gorfine of Gattaca Horizons, talking about our upcoming white paper on Early Wage Access and how it fits into broader fintech innovation and consumer’s financial lives. And we’ll be talking with Google about our second paper with them on Model Risk Management (MRM), focusing this time on (what else?) AI. 

It was great to see so many fans of the show when I spoke at FinnovateFall in New York this month. I look forward to seeing more listeners in October at the National Bankers Association’s Annual Conference, and, of course, at Money 20/20.

And also, of course, I hope to see you at the Singapore Fintech Festival. For listeners in the U.S. who may think traveling to Singapore wouldn’t be worth the time and expense, do think again. This is the world’s largest financial conference and is, perhaps, the only fintech conference whose DNA is coded with a regulatory and public interest mindset, because it was started by the Monetary Authority of Singapore. It’s unique in the world, and it has more and more people coming from the Americas. Last year, a senior U.S. regulator attended for the first time and said to me, why aren’t there more people here from the U.S.? Good question! It is always a highlight of my year.