Artificial intelligence is advancing at dizzying speed. But the hardest questions about AI may not be technical at all. Who should decide what responsible AI looks like? Can we create meaningful AI regulation without stifling innovation? And at a moment of deep distrust in both government and Big Tech, how do leaders build the coalitions needed to move forward? In this episode of The Space In Between, Leigh Morgan sits down with Ambassador Karen Kornbluh, Senior Advisor for Emerging Technologies at the Milken Institute, to make sense of the fault lines shaping AI policy, governance, innovation, and leadership.
Their conversation moves beyond the familiar choice between “let technology run” and “regulate it before it harms us.” Instead, they explore a more demanding space in between: how thoughtful guardrails, public accountability, human agency, and innovation can coexist—and what leaders can do right now rather than waiting for perfect answers.
Summary of Key Points
The AI debate is often framed as a choice: move fast and protect innovation, or put stronger regulations in place and risk slowing progress. Karen Kornbluh challenges that binary. Throughout the conversation, she makes the case that innovation and sensible guardrails can coexist—and that we have navigated versions of this tension before with industries ranging from telecommunications and aviation to pharmaceuticals.
But AI arrives at a particularly difficult moment. Trust in government is low. Trust in Big Tech is fragile. The technology itself is moving extraordinarily quickly, while questions about jobs, privacy, children’s safety, competition, data ownership, cybersecurity, and even energy and water use are piling up. It is easy for leaders—and the rest of us—to become overwhelmed.
Karen offers a different way into the problem: stop treating AI as one giant issue that must be solved all at once. Break the challenge into places where people can understand the stakes, exercise agency, and see tangible progress.
Among the ideas Leigh and Karen explore:
- Who should set the rules? Technology companies have extraordinary expertise, but their incentives are not always the same as the public’s. What role should government play as a counterweight—and how does it earn the trust required to do that?
- Guardrails can support innovation. Regulation does not automatically mean stopping progress. Well-designed rules can create greater safety, accountability, competition, and confidence while leaving room for experimentation.
- AI’s consequences are becoming very local. The debate over data centers brings abstract questions about AI directly into communities through electricity costs, water use, jobs, economic development, transparency, and local decision-making.
- Our data is part of the equation. AI systems depend on vast amounts of human-generated information, raising increasingly important questions about consent, ownership, compensation, and control.
- Leadership requires translation. Leaders need enough understanding to navigate the complexity—but also the ability to bring the conversation back to what people actually experience and what they can do about it.
Underneath all of these issues is a question that has animated Karen’s career: How do we make technology serve people, rather than simply asking people to adapt to technology? It is a useful lens for leaders trying to find their footing in an AI landscape where the answers are not yet settled.
Advice for Leading in AI Times
- Demand more. Expect technology companies, government, vendors, and other institutions to serve people and communities—not simply ask everyone else to absorb the consequences of rapid change.
- Get out of the abstraction. Break a sprawling AI debate into specific problems people can understand and influence. Tangible progress can help rebuild trust.
- Meet people where they are. Use language and forums that matter to the people you are trying to serve. Trust is harder to build when leaders communicate only from inside their own institutions.
- Look for places of real agency. Local debates over data centers are one example: communities can ask who bears electricity and water costs, what is being promised, what is being kept confidential, and how decisions are made.
- Build accountability into the system. Reporting requirements, liability, and other thoughtful guardrails can change how leaders and boards assess risk without requiring a choice between responsibility and innovation.
- Keep asking who technology is serving. The central leadership question is not simply what AI can do, but whose needs it serves, who bears the costs, and who has a voice in the decisions.
Biography – Karen Kornbluh
Ambassador Karen Kornbluh is a leading voice on technology, economic policy, and the relationship between innovation and democracy. She serves as Senior Advisor for Emerging Technologies at the Milken Institute and has spent her career working at the intersection of technology, public policy, business, and economic opportunity.
Her career has included work in the U.S. Senate, the Federal Communications Commission, the Treasury Department, and as a policy director for then-Senator Barack Obama. Earlier in her career, she worked with U.S. manufacturers confronting technological and economic change. She also helped create the E-Rate program, expanding connectivity for schools and libraries. Across that work runs a consistent question: how can technology serve people and broaden opportunity?
Helpful Resources
- The Milken Institute’s work on emerging technologies and artificial intelligence
- The federal E-Rate program and its role in expanding connectivity for schools and libraries
Keep the Conversation Going
Share this episode with a friend or colleague you would like to talk with about AI, leadership, innovation, and responsibility. And please leave a rating and review wherever you listen—it helps more people discover The Space In Between.
