What does solving the digital divide look like? The simple answer—getting more people online—is tempting, but it’s just a first step. Focusing only on home adoption rates provides a too limited perspective on the benefits of solving the digital divide. Consistency of connectivity is a key issue for low-income households—and this consistency is an important part of what the Federal Communications Commission’s Affordable Connectivity Plan (ACP) offers. For many households, the digital divide is not a one-time bridge to cross. Instead, online connectivity can be episodic. People may be unable to pay for one or more months of service, resulting in overdue bills. They may be reliant on a mobile service with a data cap. They may be unable to afford any monthly service and rely upon publicly available Wi-Fi or public libraries for connectivity. These challenges show up in the data: Nationally, 49% of low-income households are “subscription vulnerable,” meaning they have lost connectivity in the prior year or worry about whether they can afford next month’s bill. Being unconnected is a recurring condition that takes time and effort to manage. Doing away with the ACP will do more than disconnect many households. It will come at the cost of lost opportunities to address our most urgent problems.

[John B. Horrigan is a Benton Senior Fellow and a national expert on technology adoption, digital inclusion, and evaluating the outcomes and impacts of programs designed to promote communications technology adoption and use. Angela Siefer founded the National Digital Inclusion Alliance (NDIA) in 2015 and has been working in the field we now call digital inclusion since 1997. Blair Levin is the Policy Advisor to New Street Research and a nonresident senior fellow at Brookings Metro​.]

The purpose of the Arkansas Digital Skills and Opportunity Plan is to outline an actionable path forward to make digital opportunity an economic benefit and reality for all Arkansans. This plan will position the state’s residents to pursue cross-sectoral economic growth through broadband-related, nondeployment activities and enhance workforce development. The draft plan is open for public comment until January 25, 2024. ARConnect has a detailed vision for achieving digital opportunity in Arkansas: 

By 2030, every person, family, and community in Arkansas – regardless of location and income – will have access to:

• Affordable, reliable high-speed internet service in their homes, businesses, and community anchor institutions (i.e., libraries, schools, healthcare providers)
• The opportunity to enroll in basic computer skills training
• A computer, tablet, or mobile device

Every resident will be able to self-determine how they use digital tools and resources to safely and securely participate in education, healthcare, employment, and other important parts of our increasingly online society.

The Purdue Center for Regional Development—in partnership with the Indiana Broadband Office, the Indiana Office of Community and Rural Affairs, and Purdue Extension—has developed a draft of the state’s first-ever Digital Equity Plan. The plan will serve as a road map to help Indiana overcome the digital divide, assisting Indiana residents, communities and businesses that are unable to participate in the digital economy due to various barriers, including poor or no broadband connection, having no digital devices, and the need to learn digital skills. On Jan. 8, the Indiana Broadband Office published online a draft of the five-year plan, launching a 30-day public comment period for feedback before the proposed plan is implemented. The Purdue Center for Regional Development (PCRD), which is part of the university’s Office of Engagement, led the effort by forming Indiana’s digital equity task force, conducting surveys and data analysis, drafting initial goals and objectives, conducting regional solution sessions and finalizing the draft document for public comments. Roberto Gallardo, vice president for engagement and the center’s director, said, “Digital inequalities have far-reaching impacts on businesses, organizations, residents and workers. Failing to address these disparities can place a region at a competitive disadvantage. PCRD’s goal is to contribute to the development of a thriving economy within our state, and the Digital Equity Plan stands as a crucial component of this strategic effort.”

The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted that accessing healthcare providers can be difficult for older adults, especially those with multiple chronic conditions who depend on primary care for disease management. The internet is a powerful tool for increasing access to healthcare information, resources, and social supports. Unfortunately, there is a “digital divide” in internet connectivity and use associated with social and demographic characteristics. During the pandemic, the federal government loosened regulatory restrictions and other barriers to encourage use of telemedicine. Efforts were made to expand internet access by expanding broadband coverage and by providing subsidized devices and internet plans to low-income households, and clinicians employed strategies to make telehealth more accessible. Still, an internet access and skills gap may remain, limiting the potential of telemedicine to be applied equitably. If so, closing the digital divide may be critical for avoiding disparities in access to healthcare, especially for patients with mobility or transportation limitations. We examined change in internet use during the pandemic for people with Medicare aged 65 and older in the 50 states and DC. 

US Senators Michael Bennet (D-CO), Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), and Peter Welch (D-VT) wrote to US Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) to call for a new independent federal agency to establish oversight over large technology firms. The senators’ call follows Schumer’s Senate AI Insight Forums, which underscored the need for a comprehensive approach to artificial intelligence (AI) and the Big Tech companies currently dominating this sector. In their letter, the senators highlight Congress’ history of establishing expert, sector-specific federal bodies to oversee complex sectors of the economy—including the creation of the Food and Drug Administration in 1906, the creation of the Federal Communications Commission in 1934, and the establishment of the Federal Aviation Administration in 1958. 

There's no such thing as an AI system without values — and that means this newest technology platform must navigate partisan rifts, culture-war chasms and international tensions from the very beginning. Every step in training, tuning and deploying AI models forces its creators to make choices about whose values the system will respect, whose point of view it will present and what limits it will observe. AI systems' points of view begins in the data with which they are trained — and the efforts their developers may take to mitigate the biases in the data. From there, most systems undergo an "alignment" effort, in which developers try to make the AI "safer" by rating its answers as more or less desirable. Makers routinely talk about aligning AI with human values, but don't acknowledge how deeply contested human values are. Right now, in many cases, only the makers of an AI system know exactly what values they're trying to embed — and how successful they are.