B I J A N

Since stepping out of government and no longer working as a full time investor, I have spent a great deal of time in conversation. With members of Congress. With policy leaders. With technologists and founders. Across these conversations, there is real and substantive debate underway about artificial intelligence, its risks, and its promise. But there is also uncertainty about how to talk about it clearly and responsibly in a democratic context. This essay reflects what I have learned from those discussions and how I believe leaders should approach AI at this moment.

I have spent my career at the intersection of innovation, markets, and public service. As a technology investor, I have seen how startups create value, expand opportunity, and change what is possible. As a United States Ambassador, I have seen how technology shapes power, trust, and democratic resilience. Those experiences have shaped how I think about artificial intelligence and the broader technology sector.

Technology is not destiny. It is a tool. Its impact depends on who builds it, who benefits from it, and the values that guide its use.

Artificial intelligence is one of the most consequential shifts of our time. At its best, it can accelerate medical discovery, strengthen national security, improve public services, and help entrepreneurs solve problems at global scale. At its worst, it can concentrate power, harden bias, displace workers without support, and erode trust in democratic institutions.

My core belief is simple. Innovation and responsibility must move forward together.

I remain deeply optimistic about startups and entrepreneurship. America’s strength has always come from people willing to take risks and build new things. That spirit matters as much today as it ever has. We should continue to make the United States the best place in the world to start and scale a company, especially in areas like health, climate, education, and productivity.

But scale changes the stakes. The technologies we are discussing today move faster and reach further than anything that came before them. A small number of platforms and models can now influence labor markets, information flows, and geopolitics. That reality calls for a government that understands technology, supports innovation, and is prepared to set clear boundaries in the public interest.

It is understandable that many leaders focus first on job loss. Every major technological transition creates anxiety alongside opportunity. But history shows that trying to slow or block innovation does not protect workers. What does protect them is preparing people to adapt, ensuring they share in the gains, and shaping markets so new technologies create broad based prosperity rather than narrow concentration.

My views on AI rest on five principles.

First, the United States must lead. That requires sustained investment in basic research, strong partnerships with universities, support for open and responsible science, and immigration policies that attract and retain top talent. Leadership in AI is not only an economic priority. It is a strategic and values driven one.

Second, we need clear rules of the road. AI systems that affect hiring, lending, healthcare, public safety, or democratic discourse should be transparent, tested, and accountable. Trust is not a barrier to innovation. It is what allows innovation to scale and endure.

Third, we must center people. Every major technological transition brings disruption. The real question is whether we help workers adapt and thrive. That means serious investment in reskilling, modern workforce protections, and a commitment to dignity in work. AI should expand human capability, not sideline it.

Fourth, competition matters. Open markets drive breakthrough innovation. We need to ensure that startups can compete, that data and platforms do not become permanent gatekeepers, and that antitrust policy reflects the realities of modern technology rather than outdated assumptions.

Finally, democracy comes first. AI systems that distort information, enable large scale manipulation, or undermine trust in elections pose a direct challenge to free societies. Addressing those risks requires strong domestic safeguards, international cooperation, and clear global norms aligned with democratic values.

I believe America can lead in AI and technology without sacrificing fairness, accountability, or human dignity. In fact, real leadership demands it. The goal is not to slow progress. It is to shape it deliberately, in ways that strengthen our economy, our alliances, and our democracy.

I’ve known Judge Mark Wolf for several years. We’re neighbors in Massachusetts. Over coffee, I’ve come to understand how deeply he cares about justice and the rule of law.

When I served as Ambassador to the Czech Republic, Lauren and I hosted Judge Wolf for lunch in Prague. We talked about democracy and what it means to protect institutions that can seem abstract until they’re under threat.

Lauren and me with Judge Mark Wolf, United States Ambassador’s residence, Prague, 2023

The Czechs understand this. They lived through occupation. They know what happens when the law becomes a weapon instead of a shield.

This week, Judge Wolf resigned from the federal bench after nearly 40 years. He wasn’t tired. He wasn’t ready to retire. He resigned because, as he wrote in The Atlantic, “silence, for me, is now intolerable.”

A federal judge with a lifetime appointment walked away from a position he loved because staying silent felt worse than speaking out.

Judge Wolf spent five decades at the Department of Justice and on the bench. He prosecuted corruption. He sentenced a Speaker of the Massachusetts House to eight years for taking bribes. He ordered the government to pay over $100 million to families of people murdered by FBI informants. He does not speak lightly about threats to the rule of law.

His concerns are specific. President Trump publicly instructed Attorney General Pam Bondi to seek indictments against political adversaries, even when officials saw no proper basis for charges. The FBI’s public corruption squad has been eliminated. The Justice Department’s public integrity section has been gutted from 30 lawyers to five. Inspectors general who detect fraud and misconduct were fired, possibly unlawfully.

As Judge Wolf writes: “What Nixon did episodically and covertly, knowing it was illegal or improper, Trump now does routinely and overtly.”

What struck me most is what this decision cost him. He loved being a judge. He took pride in a federal judiciary that makes “our country’s ideal of equal justice under law a reality.” But ethical rules limit what judges can say publicly. And he watched in “dismay and disgust” as the administration “dismantled so much of what I dedicated my life to.”

Judge Wolf has worked in countries ruled by corrupt leaders who jail political opponents, suppress independent media, forbid free speech, punish peaceful protests, and block any effort to establish an independent judiciary. He’s not claiming we’re there. He’s telling us where we’re heading if we don’t pay attention.

A lifetime appointment. A career of distinguished service. A position he loved. He set it all aside because speaking out became more important than staying comfortable.

I encourage you to read Judge Wolf’s full essay.

Václav Havel was born on this day. The playwright turned president saw that change begins when ordinary people decide they’ve had enough.

Havel wrote about this in The Power of the Powerless. He watched people in communist Czechoslovakia go through the motions. They hung state slogans in shop windows not because they believed them, but because it was safer than facing consequences. They applauded speeches that made them cringe. They went along. Small compromise after small compromise.

His answer: live in truth. Stop pretending. Stop nodding along when you know something is wrong.

Living in truth might mean not sharing a story you suspect is false. It might mean speaking up when someone gets unfairly attacked. Small things.

Havel’s warning applies beyond communism. We’re not behind an Iron Curtain, but we still face pressures to stay quiet or go along.

Nearly the entire Fulbright board resigned this week. These public servants did not step down lightly. They quit because the White House interfered in selecting Fulbright scholars, turning a merit based program into something political.

When I served as U.S. Ambassador to the Czech Republic, I saw what Fulbright makes possible. I met American Fulbrighters teaching in Czech towns, often living abroad for the first time. They were curious and humble and eager to learn. I met Czech Fulbrighters studying in the U.S., working on public health and climate science and music. One went on to build a nonprofit. Another joined the Czech foreign ministry.

I met Czech university leaders like Milena Králíčková, a Fulbright alum who became rector of Charles University in Prague. Martin Bareš, rector of Masaryk University in Brno, is also a Fulbright alum. These leaders are shaping the future of their country. Fulbright played a part in that.

I met Americans in government and research and civil society who traced their careers back to a Fulbright experience.

Senator J. William Fulbright created the program in 1946. He believed educational exchange could help prevent future wars. He wanted to replace suspicion with understanding. That idea matters as much now as it did almost 80 years ago.

Fulbright builds real relationships. It says that exchange between people matters. That academic freedom matters. That we gain something when we listen to each other.

When politics takes over this program, we lose something. We turn away the very people who want to engage with us. We damage how others see us.

This never should have happened. The board members who resigned stood up for what the program was meant to be. They were right to do so.

We should be protecting Fulbright, not weakening it.

We’ve had a place on Nantucket for years but never been inside the Unitarian church on Orange Street. This spring, Lauren and I decided to try it. What I want to tell you about happened on our second visit.

The minister started telling a story passed down from a local family. She said the word “Czechoslovakia,” and I sat up. This island and my second home, Czechia, were suddenly connected.

It was 1939. Nazi forces had just marched into Prague. Czech intellectuals and religious leaders were being hunted. Some escaped.

Word spread that Czech Unitarians were in danger. Congregations in the U.S. arranged passage for those fleeing. When this little Nantucket church learned Czech families were arriving with nowhere to go, they opened their homes. Quietly and without fanfare.

One family they took in was Maja Capek, her teenage son, and her elderly father. Maja’s husband was Reverend Norbert Capek, who had founded the Unitarian Church in Prague. In 1923, he created the Flower Communion. Each person brings a flower and places it in a shared vase. At the end of the service, each person takes home a different one. We come from different places, but we belong to the same community. We are changed by being part of it.

That ritual spread everywhere. Congregations still hold a Flower Communion each spring. Capek believed in human diversity and spiritual freedom. The Nazis saw those beliefs as a threat. He was arrested in 1941 and murdered in 1942.

Another family the church took in was Zdenek Kopal, a young astronomer, with his wife and infant daughter. He went on to help NASA map the moon for Apollo. That journey started in a stranger’s home on Nantucket.

The Capeks and the Kopals arrived with almost nothing. No luggage. No certainty. Just hope someone would help. And someone did.

Sitting in that pew, I felt the weight of it.

The values Capek held onto did not die with him. They lived on through his family. They lived on in Nantucket. They live on every time people come together to honor difference.

The connection between the U.S. and Czechia runs deeper than diplomacy. It shows up in what it means to show up for one another.