Whether we like it or not, the San Francisco Bay Area is the birthplace of the tech industry – and it’s here to stay. For most people who lived through the early days of the “online revolution”, the potential for bold innovation and cutting-edge discoveries fueled an anti-Establishment counterculture that is a far cry from today’s race to monetize every aspect of human life. Tech IS the Establishment now. In an increasingly AI-saturated world, there are many questions that progressive policy can and should help answer in dialogue with ethicists, academics, diplomats, civic leaders and tech engineers. What is the industry’s obligation to society as a steward of a powerful tool that has increasingly become weaponized for unscrupulous ends – what is San Francisco’s role as an industry leader? What is the balance to be struck between honing a tool that can help improve people’s lives – and allowing unfettered data-mining and exploitation of people to make society’s top 1% even wealthier? What is the cost to the environment and at what point is it no longer reasonable or safe to ask society to bear those costs? 

Progressive policies appropriately put people first in the answers to these questions. There is still time to enact reasonable reforms and guardrails across tech. San Francisco can be a leader in this regard, but it will take collaboration from both within and outside of the tech industry.