 politics. And it's my pleasure to introduce Venki Narayana Murti, who is a professor of physics, Benjamin Pierce professor of technology and public policy at Harvard University. Venki, welcome to the queue. Physics at Harvard? Now, you founded the engineering group at Harvard, right? Tell us about that. Well, I'm actually passionate about technology and the role of technology in the wider world. Technology is very much a techno-social system interacting with society. Harvard needed to have a strong presence in technology because of that very reason, because I actually view liberal arts education as a very good thing, the breadth, but in fact, liberal arts education must change with the times. And in today's time, where technology is about 80%, every one of us has a smartphone, president goes with his blackberry and so on, that we need to have all Harvard students appreciate technology and all engineering students to appreciate the wider world. But as I said, we like to train engineers who not only know how things work, but how the world works. And that's the difference with Harvard and some other technologies. Well, you know, the tagline of Silicon Angle is where computer science meets social science. Right. So that's, I created a center for computation in society at Harvard as Dean, because we decided that computer science at Harvard would be different. In fact, it should relate to society right from the start with the outreach. Well, we're talking off camera about the impact that has on invention. Yes. I wonder if you could talk about that a little bit, your perspectives on that. Yeah. Yes. I think one of the things which we want to think about is really all disciplines have creativity. You're creative in various ways in journalism and other features. I might be in physics, somebody else might be in social science. Invention is also a creative process, but which has value in terms of patents or something. And innovation is when it becomes applicable to the wider world. So we want to actually have a culture which embraces all three. And it can, people talk about discovery, scientific discovery, but it turns out that scientific discovery and invention of new technologies are intimately related. Sometimes it's the invention which leads to new discoveries. Sometimes discoveries lead to new inventions. And you need to have this interplay between discovery and invention. So that's sort of my mantra and people leave out the word invention. For me, the greatest hero was Edison and Graham Bell. I work for Bell Labs and Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone because his mother was deaf and his wife was deaf. He wanted to convert electricity into sound. What a nice thing to do about communication. So we want to encourage the inventors. How about the Wright brothers? Where do they stand? They are great. You want to try and experiment. They don't normally follow the rules. With no resources. Right. And cyber in some senses, the computer scientists, the nerds, the electrical engineers, they designed a beautiful system to actually where people can communicate. And in an open way, in a trustworthy way, and that's what led to this very worldwide thing. So let's talk about your activities here today. You hosted a panel. You gave some brief remarks. Then Fadi Shahadi, the CEO of Vicon, gave a great presentation. And then you had Michelle Markov and then St. Amor and Michelle as the Senior Policy Advisor of the Coordination of Cyber Affairs at the State Department. She's leaving with a full disclosure there and Lynn St. Amor is the CEO of ISOC, which was started by Ben Syrfan and other Digiradi. So that was a very interesting session. We heard from the President and CEO of Vicon, Fadi Shahadi, that essentially the current structure is not sustainable, which was sort of new news. So I think this is kind of important. The internet started in the United States. And if you look at how each one of you, if you know how computers work, the computer scientists and the electrical engineers have an addressing system. The whole bunch of numbers. There's a domain name. There's a, you know, you have an address. And then you know what domain it might be Harvard. And then it might be EDU, education might be org, it might be government. And then there'll be a country. The only country which doesn't have its name at the end is the U.S. Because of course we started it and so on. And there has to be a body which assigns the names and the numbers. So I can become an outgrowth of, in fact, that happening. And so who assigns the names and the numbers? And other countries now with the worldwide growth of the internet have some serious reservations because we control so much of it. Most of the servers are here, et cetera. And then the Russians want their piece, the Chinese want their piece, and the Indians will want their piece, and so will five other countries. So this is a big, big issue how you assign those numbers and you interface with the thing. So we are in control, but people do not trust us anymore as much. And some of it is a lot of it is economic competition. The economic competition that came out in our panel is a very important element here. So how important do you think the, I'll call it the deck stacking, was for companies that are now dominating the internet, like Google, like Amazon, Facebook? So I think this is, again, I'm a great fan of technology. But today's New York Times is an article by Joe Nussera where he reviews a book where, in fact, the big internet companies have made a huge amount of money, but the people who are doing some of the work are you and me. We are the individual little ones, but we're not getting reimbursed. We should be paid in micro dollars, which then amount to billions of dollars. Bitcoin. Right, right, right, right. In a sense. So it's really... I would take Bitcoin for that. Right, right. So there you are. It's really, this has to evolve because we now have behemoths who are using some of the, whether that causes a problem long term is an open question, but that is one for debate. So how do we make that or help that evolution along? Obviously, there's the incentives of the Google's of the world are to not give up that control and that US-centric view. And by its very nature, we're looking to make the internet and cyberspace more valuable and usable for people around the world so they can monetize the internet. Obviously, the people who are the powers to be at Google and other US-centric organizations, whether it's government or corporations, they don't want to give that up. How do we actually incentivize that? How do we move from where we are today to a more multilateral governance framework? So I think this is extremely important question. What I was very pleased with Fahad's talk, he was trying to reach out and actually have diplomatic missions, so to speak, in Russia, in China, in India, in Brazil, a huge case, etc., because we have to build that trust and ultimately our companies have to realize that they are now global companies. The populations which are going to grow are in China and India and Brazil and all of those other places. So I think this will evolve and ultimately it has to become multi-stakeholder, multi-lateral. So is it a matter of making it clear to Google and Amazon really, it's in your best interest to extend this to the rest of the world because that's where a lot of your customers are going to come. So I think over the period this will evolve and I think that hopefully will reach some kind of an equilibrium but there probably will be a lot of missteps along the way. We're facing the same thing actually with GPS. GPS is the most important invention, even almost as important as the internet because you're able to tell location, etc., and it was also done by the US Defense Department and you know we controlled all the GPS information. We've got all the satellites, we've got all of the stations all over the globe in Australia to span the globe. Now Chinese are setting up their own GPS, the Russians and the Indians because they are afraid that the US does not give the full opens because that's Google. So these are huge, huge issues which will have to be that in some senses not that different with trade and world trade organizations and there will be competition and then there will be have to be some agreements etc. So I think what I can is beginning to do to reach out is a good thing. We were talking again off camera about the notion of governance in cyberspace and you made the comment that perhaps more open source is an approach that could be an effective governance mechanism. I wonder if you could elaborate. This is a matter of debate. It's again people who want to control versus people who want open because it is so distributed. Its strength may only come by actually having it even more distributed and in fact that also provides some security because nobody can follow up the whole thing. There will be some minor perturbations somewhere and so and I'm not an expert in the complex systems but my intuition tells me that may be almost the only answer that's because you can't control it that way. I wonder how closely you track I was joking about Bitcoin before but this notion of crypto currencies that emerged you know by some smart guys with some servers and essentially what appears to be an open source like movement which is tolerated by for instance China but maybe warned against what do you make of that type of development for commerce for currency and what do you think we can learn from that if anything in terms of governing cyberspace. I don't know I really am not an expert in that area but clearly it is still to be resolved and my own view again is that there are creative people out there and we should let those creative uses flow and then ultimately the marketplace will decide it. The marketplace will decide it because in fact that's why I'm for that openness that's the beauty of it. It's built on openness and trust and the way we lost out this year with the Snowden thing that we have compromised the trust we had with it so all of these would you know this is human relations are trust your families are trust so that was a maybe a risk reward equation but certainly we don't have all the information but it but it appears that yeah you know maybe the reward was as great as the risk that I actually think security is important but you still have to do it intelligently and you can't search the whole world you're finding like a needle in a haystack you've got to do it much more intelligently than then we just billions of data makes no sense. Well we talk a lot Jeff Kelly about analytics finding those needs. So I wonder you know you we talked off camera a little bit we talked here during the segment a little bit about the need to for engineers to really understand how the world works kind of the social consequences of some of the things that they're building and how they fit in the world it's kind of a related question I think is how confident are you in I guess our world leaders that they can transition us to this new through this cyber governance question do they have do you think the blend of technology not knowledge and expertise with the policy expertise and political expertise in other words do do politicians understand technology enough to to get us through this. Oh you I'm so glad you brought up that point that was a point which came up in our panel as well we now that I've spent four years in the Kennedy School we have it's really really sad that we don't have people with enough knowledge of technology the bigger problem engineers should be more socially conscious but the other is even more serious far more serious you at least have to know who to go and ask the right questions and if you see what problems we had with healthcare.gov we didn't have a clue how to run this kind of system we needed to have some really good technologists in there running the thing and that's what Fahd said as well as well as I said but we need to get many more people who understand that so actually the right at least technological knowledge will be there so this is a huge issue and actually I'm that's why I'm working passionate to get technology much more to the public policy. Well Fahd he told the story he was in a some meeting and Deutsche Telekom was proposing that we start they start the the the German internet and Angela Merkel was listening yeah intently yeah but so why why shouldn't there be a German internet if you're well it's back to the issue of you know this this issue of uh uh i can and multi-stakeholder yeah if you can have one why can't I save the GPS systems right and this is I think but it's not the answer is it is it or is it is it it might be a German internet and a China internet but but you still have to figure out how you interface them I think one of things is protocols right in fact I said that's a diplomatic thing right protocol so I think it it will evolve but German companies are also global companies Chinese companies are global companies and therefore they will have to be able to work with each other even if you do so design and if you don't design them to work here you're going to be dead that's really there our ultimate hope is we can't go to war with China because we are so economically dependent on each other and vice versa that's the tutorials well there's another question around you make you feel a little better I think for the Chinese military or the US military we probably do need a Chinese internet and the US internet but that's a purely military function but for all the commerce I mean tell me I mean look no supply chains supply chains right exactly right it seems to me it would be truly a step backwards right so oh yeah my own view is that the main internet should be really an open internet for certain very very special things you might need a Chinese internet you military internet and so on but just not necessarily controlled by the strong hand of the US government right right right but to Fadi's point you can't just pull the plug on that no you got legal issues right security issues and the same issue with GPS and really it's not unrelated because the GPS the main thing the smartphone is so good for you is you're able to locate yourself there's a question they ask you are you willing to say your knowledge happily if it benefits me right right so it's huge it's huge it's huge so anyway well so you know as we're going forward and we're and we're trying to as a world community trying to develop some of these governance capabilities what are some of the risks that we're trying to govern or guard ourselves against and how does that change in your view from what from the early days of the internet to what we see now I mean we see actors like lone actors like Snowden or we see people who are groups like anonymous coming coming to the fore and attacking both governments and corporations you also got the physical infrastructure that is now on the grid what are some of the threats specifically that we're talking about that it makes this question so important yeah first of all I think one big difference in security arena between let's say nuclear which I know something about where the threat is highly physical and huge and also concentrated and the state is important very hard there are issues of nuclear terrorism but usually it's going to be Iran with a bunch of nuclear centrifuges etc but in the internet there can be a very large number of non-state actors it's so distributed and that of course is it's the complication right and and and and it's just like having criminals we're going to have to have to develop protocols and and and etc and try to understand that Harvard recently had a student do a bomb threat and then he did get caught right to get out of final side right right right and and so now the really good the really good thieves will not be as incompetent as my Harvard student but eventually we need to so so that's that's kind of what the NSA and others will be doing so we just celebrated you know the new year and every year I look back and I said okay do I feel more secure than I did last year I've done this about probably for about a decade and each year I come to the same conclusion no if anything I feel less secure so my question is given the prevalence of of cyberspace the the the notion that international relations haven't kept pace and are unable to keep pace is security in your view a do-over do we need to rethink the way in which we approach security completely yes I do think so I think at least my experience with TSA you know with aircraft now it's in a sense it's good we've not had too many aircraft but we are not scanning people intelligently I'm 74 years old I have a knee with the artificial knee and God knows do I get first and and so on and you look at most of terrorists they're usually 19 22 years old 22 year old you got to use some common senses here and we're just not doing this intelligently and so this applies everywhere and ultimately what we all value is our freedoms so there is this battle between security and freedom and we may just have gone too far I think it has to be rethought where we have to manage balance the risk with the threat well in addition to the threat I mean the the power that the internet provides to you know potential criminals or terrorists also is the same power that enables innovators right so you've got to somehow try to eliminate or reduce the threat from from from potential criminals and terrorists but allow innovators to still leverage all that power of the of the internet absolutely when I met with general alexander and he was heading the national you know cyber command and so on I said NSA has to have the most creative computer scientists and attract them because that's the best defense because in fact you want those creative people there and and that really and the reason they would want to work on national security problems because it'll be challenging it'll be exciting you want to do the most exciting problem and not some mundane military problem it doesn't difference I don't want to be you know class so thank you we were talking earlier about bell labs I mentioned xerox park you've seen technological innovations over the decades I have to say I as an observer have been just surprised at how much new innovation comes out what has surprised you and what are you tracking these days the excitement so I think clearly I'm a great believer in the individual creativity within innovation but people have maybe gone too much to the venture model because silicon value is obviously highly successful but the computer area does not require huge amounts of investment in the sense you can go to a little garage and do things etc but certain things require a lot of investment and if you look at the case one of the biggest problems of our time is energy and if you look at our public utilities we've got a hundred year old electricity system we do not and we're going to have to get a new kind of bell labs which install tackle large problems which require expenditures on a different scale and that will become very important so we need to create new kinds of xerox and bell labs and industrial labs who could address the big physical issues we still want the venture capitalists to do their thing with facebook etc but ultimately even they are realizing that they need the physical infrastructure google bought Motorola what do you call it microsoft has bought skype and nokia and then it'll go down the chain so this is an important element and it's a national strategy i feel we are falling behind as the nation well this is a this is a great talking track because there are you know CEOs that we talked to on the cube are very frustrated with the u.s. government when i asked i asked joe tucci recently was the CEO of emcee what was it like in your trip to china and he said i'll tell you one thing this is a problem that you and your grandchildren are going to have to deal with when i'm in china i get the sense that the government and and industry are very much aligned and and CEOs are telling us that they're they feel like they're not aligned in the u.s. they're almost fighting each other so to your point you've got to have that infrastructure the government is the one who largely provides that it's key actually it's kind of tragic we i've now gone to china they actually get it and they're supposed to be a communist country they actually are using free market techniques and really getting the best we're hungry we have suddenly had this outmoded view that somehow that it'll just be sorted itself out by the by competition there really is a role for our leaders including the industrial leaders and the government leaders to actually articulate but otherwise china will be way ahead we used to get it kennedy got it some of the others got it yeah for the big hard problems you have to have yes that alignment and what is really important that's in this fight between republicans and democrats was horrible as a market person decide the industry is not worried about the regulation i've had enough industry wants firm benchmarks so these are when you change the tax policy every day of the week give me some certainty and then get out of the way so that really is an important part of the element and then also the research part is not about science and engineering or science and technology but what is it the long term the government has been investing the long term the infrastructure including the research infrastructure and then the shorter term goes to the industry yeah the shorter term to your to your point of adventure capital right which is which is you know you can argue is helpful absolutely of course we are great right so but we'll have to go back to this the challenge it seems to me currently is to invest in infrastructure as a government you've got to potentially raise taxes or or divert funds from other parts of the government and we've obviously got a conversation for a situation in this country where we've got you know the rise of kind of the tea party and the libertarian streak which doesn't want to invest more and things like that right and that's you know it's really i like to say i do believe in the free market and individual creativity but the reason bell labs worked was the following you can have a thousand flowers boom you want a thousand flowers to bloom but they have there are also 10 000 weeds somebody has to tell the weeds from the flowers somebody has to kill the weeds and fertilize the flowers you've got to be able to do that and we're not doing that very well well so i'll let me fall up on that so who is that is that the government's role to do that or is it the market's role to do that or a combination some of it is the market's role when it happens in the latest terms that's what venture people do but in the research end you really need people of vision who actually understand the larger parts they won't have perfect judgment but they will actually where where you invest in people not so much on projects you say kelly is really a great person i'm going to back him you invest in people that's much more important than the project well i mean what about what about the role of education i'm writing a book on it what about the role of education obviously you're in higher education but starting younger oh that's really important that's why we want uh the technologist to be able to explain the excellent that's the one advantage of the computer generation computer relates to society so well we want to excite our kids that's really important and excite their imagination they need to be the inventors that's what america was about and we we are currently i think the ceo was a correct chinese capitalism is encouraging the the real excellence in the people in a hard way it's really it burns me up to say that well now what do you tell we're running out of time here but what do you tell young people that they come to you and say oh professor you know where should i go what should i study what should i get involved in what's hot everybody wants to you know give me the give me the answer and of course most most people we ask that question to say you know follow what you love so that's obviously you know so table stakes but what do you what do you advise young people that come to you well i i would like to think first of all you of course you must be passionate about something but when you're young is the time to experiment to explore so you go and try different subjects different that's why liberal education is valuable and then over a period of time you say this is what i really love so really important part when parents would come to me my kid hasn't decided which field they want to get i said don't worry that person is 19 years old he's got time let him explore this is the one time in life he or she can explore and then over some period that's okay venki great to meet you thanks so much thank you congratulations for all your good work all right keep it right there everybody we'll be right back this is the cube we're live from mit and cambridge massachusetts right back