As I watch the news unfold in the encryption battle between Apple and the FBI, I wonder how many Americans have the necessary foundational knowledge of the technology to understand or weigh the merits of the arguments on each side.
Last week President Obama showed up at South by Southwest, calling on tech companies to find a middle ground between no encryption or strong encryption, saying “There has to be some concession to the need to be able to get into that information somehow,” asking what we would do in dire situations, for example, to catch an active terrorist, or a child pornographer.
Meanwhile, critics and computer science researchers have responded that such a middle-ground on encryption is literally “nonexistent.”
"It's a fundamentally difficult problem"
– Matt Blaze, cryptography researcher
A computer science professor and cryptography researcher at the University of Pennsylvania tweeted “It’s not like no one has thought about this problem before. It’s a fundamentally difficult problem, and it won’t be solved anytime soon.” Someone replied: “Politicians are tenaciously clinging to misunderstandings of technical limitations. What will help them understand?”
This raises a question broader than just the Apple vs. FBI battle. It’s a question of educating the American population, including not only our elected officials and lawmakers, but also all our citizens, so difficult and controversial topics like this can be discussed with a baseline understanding of the technology that is shared among us.
When last decade’s lawmakers and presidential candidates debated the ethics about research on stem cells, it wasn’t an easy topic either. And in the coming decade we’ll need to debate questions about editing the genes of unborn infants, to answer whether it’s ethical to eliminate unwanted diseases by removing them genetically, and whether this same process can be used to choose or change a baby’s genetic traits before birth.
These are all extremely complicated issues. But at least when we debate stem cells or gene editing we can rest assured that elected officials — and almost every American voter with a high school diploma — have a shared knowledge about the underlying science. We may not all be surgeons, but we’ve all spent weeks studying what a “cell” or a “gene” is in high school biology class.
When it comes to regulating encryption or the Internet, and soon, regulating artificial intelligence or self-driving cars, we don’t have this shared foundational knowledge from our primary education to guide us. Our lawmakers and the voters who elect them are forced to pick sides in the dark, or at least partially blindfolded.
In the coming decades, the onslaught of technological innovation is going to bring more controversies like this to the forefront. The changes we’ll face as a nation, and as the human race, won’t be slowing down, they’ll be speeding up.
When self-driving cars reach the point where governments need to decide whether to allow them on the roads, we’ll also need to decide who is to blame for mistakes in the algorithm behind the cars. Wouldn’t this debate be easier if all Americans had a shared understanding of what an algorithm is? Discussions like this will span every industry. The legal industry is impacted by decisions about the validity of software patents. The healthcare industry is impacted by decisions about healthcare records and the “protocols” for sharing them. The list goes on and on.
In the new economy, computer science isn't an optional skill – it's a basic skill.
Less than two months ago, President Obama spoke about the importance of giving every student in America a basic education in computer science, saying “In the new economy, computer science isn’t an optional skill — it’s a basic skill.” Politicians from both sides of the aisle agree on the importance of teaching computer science, whether it’s Republicans like Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson, Idaho Governor Butch Otter, or Democrats like New Jersey Senator Cory Booker and Pennsylvania Senator Bob Casey.
Our nation will always face difficult debates. To prepare our future lawmakers and our children for these debates, we can start by asking for schools to teach foundational computer science in grades K-12. Our schools should teach students about the inner workings of algorithms, encryption, or the Internet, just as they teach the basics of cells, genes, or electricity.
Years from now, when we’re debating the rules governing intelligent nanobots that can attach to red blood cells and download wireless “cures” for diseases, we can’t afford to leave the decisions hanging in the balance of a confusing war of words between experts and elected officials and the public. We’ll want to meaningfully participate in the debate and ensure that we and our leaders have a basic foundation in computer science.
