If you’ve been reading Tech Policy Press closely over the last three weeks, you may have come across one or more posts from collaboration with Data & Society called “ Ideologies of Control: A Series on Tech Power and Democratic Crisis .” The articles in the series examine how powerful tech billionaires and authoritarian leaders and thinkers are leveraging AI and digital infrastructure to advance anti-democratic agendas, consolidate control, and reshape society in ways that threaten privacy, ...
Jun 29, 2025•36 min
For a special series of episodes dubbed Through to Thriving that will air throughout the year, Tech Policy Press fellow Anika Collier Navaroli is hosting discussions intended to help us imagine possible futures—for tech and tech policy, for democracy, and society—beyond the moment we are in. The third episode in the series features her conversation with Dr. Timnit Gebru , the founder and executive director of the Distributed Artificial Intelligence Research Institute. Last year, Dr. Gebru wrote ...
Jun 22, 2025•53 min
Concerns about AI chatbots delivering harmful, even profoundly dangerous advice or instructions to users is growing. There is deep concern over the effects of these interactions on children, and a growing number of stories—and lawsuits—about when things go wrong, particularly for teens. In this conversation, Justin Hendrix is joined by three legal experts who are thinking deeply about how to address questions related to chatbots, and about the need for substantially more research on human-AI int...
Jun 15, 2025•55 min
In Europe, the digital regulatory landscape is in flux. Over the past few years, the EU has positioned itself as a global leader in tech regulation, rolling out landmark laws like the AI Act. But now, as the much-anticipated AI Act approaches implementation, the path forward is looking anything but smooth. Reports suggest the European Commission is considering a delay to the AI Act’s rollout due to mounting pressure from industry, difficulties in finalizing technical standards, and geopolitical ...
Jun 15, 2025•44 min
For a special series of episodes dubbed Through to Thriving that will air throughout the year, Tech Policy Press fellow Anika Collier Navaroli is hosting discussions intended to help us imagine possible futures—for tech and tech policy, for democracy, and society—beyond the moment we are in. The second episode in the series features her conversation with Dr. Desmond Upton Patton , who has long studied the intersection of technology and social issues and advised companies developing technologies ...
Jun 08, 2025•41 min
In this episode, Justin Hendrix speaks with Nerima Wako-Ojiwa , director of Siasa Place , and Odanga Madung , a tech and society researcher and journalist , about the intersection of technology, labor rights, and political power in Kenya and across Africa. The conversation explores the ongoing struggles of content moderators and AI data annotators, who face exploitative working conditions while performing essential labor for major tech companies; the failure of platforms fail to address harmful ...
Jun 08, 2025•45 min
Canadian political leaders are in a precarious moment. Fresh off the resignation of former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and ascendancy of his successor, new Prime Minister and Liberal Party leader Mark Carney , the nation faces a brewing trade war with the United States and a deteriorating relationship with its president, Donald Trump . In addition to managing those global tensions, Canadian leaders have a long to-do list on tech policy, including figuring out the nation’s approach to artificia...
Jun 06, 2025•40 min
Emily M. Bender and Alex Hanna are the authors of a new book that The Guardian calls “refreshingly sarcastic” and Business Insider calls a “funny and irreverent deconstruction of AI.” They are also occasional contributors to Tech Policy Press. Justin Hendrix spoke to them about their new book, The AI Con: How to Fight Big Tech’s Hype and Create the Future We Want , just out from Harper Collins....
Jun 01, 2025•37 min
Earlier this year, an entity called the Observatory on Information and Democracy released a major report called INFORMATION ECOSYSTEMS AND TROUBLED DEMOCRACY: A Global Synthesis of the State of Knowledge on News Media, AI and Data Governance . The report is the result of a combination of three research assessment panels comprised of over 60 volunteer researchers all coordinated by six rapporteurs and led by a scientific director that together considered over 1,600 sources on topics at the inters...
Jun 01, 2025•52 min
In February, California Governor Gavin Newsom appointed Vera Zakem as California’s State Chief Technology Innovation Officer at the California Department of Technology. Zakem brings deep experience from national security, democracy and human rights, and technology policy. Most recently, under former President Joe Biden, she served as the Chief Digital Democracy and Rights Officer at USAID, where she led global efforts to align emerging technologies with democratic values. Zakem assumes the role ...
May 29, 2025•28 min
On May 29, the Center for Civil Rights and Technology at The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights released its Innovation Framework , which it calls a “new guiding document for companies that invest in, create, and use artificial intelligence (AI), to ensure that their AI systems protect and promote civil rights and are fair, trusted, and safe for all of us, especially communities historically pushed to the margins.” Justin Hendrix spoke to the Center’s senior policy advisor on Civil ...
May 29, 2025•23 min
On Thursday, May 22, the United States House of Representatives narrowly advanced a budget bill that included the "Artificial Intelligence and Information Technology Modernization Initiative," which includes a 10-year moratorium on the enforcement of state AI laws. Tech Policy Press editor Justin Hendrix and associate editor Cristiano Lima-Strong discussed the moratorium, the contours of the debate around it, and its prospects in the Senate....
May 25, 2025•20 min
In his New York Times review of the book, Columbia Law School professor and former White House official Tim Wu calls journalist Karen Hao’s new book, Empire of AI: Dreams and Nightmares in Sam Altman’s OpenAI , “a corrective to tech journalism that rarely leaves Silicon Valley.” Hao has appeared on this podcast before, to help us understand how the business model of social media platforms incentivizes the deterioration of information ecosystems, the series of events around OpenAI CEO Sam Altman’...
May 23, 2025•45 min
Today’s guest is Milton L. Mueller , a professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology in the School of Public Policy and the head of an advocacy policy analysis group called the Internet Governance Project. Mueller has long walked the halls and sat in the rooms where internet governance is discussed and debated, and has played a role in shaping global Internet policies and institutions. He’s the author of a new book called Declaring Independence in Cyberspace: Internet Self-Governance and the ...
May 18, 2025•48 min
In the wake of the most intense India-Pakistan escalation in two decades, experts are still trying to make sense of the role that the information war played in the physical one. In this episode, Tech Policy Press Associate Editor Ramsha Jahangir speaks to two experts from India and Pakistan who tirelessly navigated the deluge of rumor and disinformation during the crisis, and who came away with thoughts about the role of social media platforms and the incentives they create, particularly in time...
May 13, 2025•28 min
Last year, a United States federal judge ruled that Google is a monopolist in the market for online search. For the past three weeks, the company and the Justice Department have been in court to hash out what remedies might look like. Tech Policy Press associate editor Cristiano Lima-Strong spoke to two experts who are following the case closely, including Karina Montoya, a senior reporter and analyst for Center for Journalism and Liberty at the Open Markets Institute, and Joseph Coniglio , the ...
May 11, 2025•34 min
Last year, Elon Musk's xAI set up its "Colossus" supercomputer in an old Electrolux manufacturing facility in Memphis, Tennessee. Now, the residents of nearby neighborhoods are pushing for facts and fair treatment as the company looks to expand its footprint amid questions about its environmental impact. Justin Hendrix considers the state of play with Dara Kerr , a reporter for The Guardian; Amber Sherman , a Memphis activist; and artifacts from local media reporting over the past year....
May 06, 2025•26 min
Catherine Bracy is a civic technologist and community organizer whose work focuses on the intersection of technology and political and economic inequality. Justin Hendrix spoke with her about her new book, World Eaters: How Venture Capital is Cannibalizing the Economy . In it, she suggests how the venture capital industry must be reformed to deliver true innovation that advances society rather than merely outsized returns for an increasingly monolithic set of investors....
May 04, 2025•35 min
From visions of AI paradise to the project to defeat death, many dangerous and unscientific ideas are driving Silicon Valley leaders. Justin Hendrix spoke to Adam Becker , a science journalist and author of MORE EVERYTHING FOREVER: AI Overlords, Space Empires, and Silicon Valley’s Crusade to Control the Fate of Humanity , just out from Basic Books....
Apr 27, 2025•40 min
For a special series of episodes that will air throughout the year, Tech Policy Press fellow Anika Collier Navaroli is hosting a series of discussions intended to help us imagine possible futures—for tech and tech policy, for democracy, and society—beyond the moment we are in. Dubbed Through to Thriving , the first episode in the series features a discussion on how to build community and solidarity with Ellen Pao , currently the co-founder of a nonprofit called Project Include , which focuses on...
Apr 20, 2025•50 min
Last month, a group of researchers published a letter “Affirming the Scientific Consensus on Bias and Discrimination in AI.” The letter, published at a time when the Trump administration is rolling back policies and threatening research aimed at protecting people from bias and discrimination in AI, carries the signatures of more than 200 experts. To learn more about their goals, Justin Hendrix spoke to three of the signatories: J. Nathan Matias , an Assistant Professor in the Department of Commu...
Apr 16, 2025•19 min
On Monday, April 14, the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) will kick off its trial against Meta . In process for years, the case is over whether Mark Zuckerberg’s company has an illegal monopoly over social media and whether it should be forced to spin off Instagram and WhatsApp. To prepare to cover the arguments, Tech Policy Press Associate Editor Cristiano Lima-Strong spoke to two experts to better understand the issues at play. William (Bill) Kovacic is a Professor of Law and Policy and Direc...
Apr 13, 2025•35 min
On April 4, The New York Times reported that the European Commission is considering finding X, formerly Twitter, as part of its ongoing DSA investigation, which began in 2023. Tech Policy Press has discussed at length the extent and quality of transparency from platforms under the DSA, but there is limited insight into how the Commission is conducting its investigations into large online platforms and search engines. In most cases, the publicly available documents on cases are just press release...
Apr 08, 2025•30 min
Across the United States and in some cities abroad yesterday, protestors took to the streets to resist the policies of US President Donald Trump . Dubbed the "Hands Off" protests, over 1,400 events took place, including in New York City, where protestors called for billionaire Elon Musk to be ousted from his role in government and for an end to the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which has gutted government agencies and programs and sought to install artificial intelligence systems t...
Apr 06, 2025•54 min
On Tuesday, March 25th, Tech Policy Press hosted a webinar discussion to talk shop with others on the tech and democracy beat. We gathered seven colleagues from around the world to explore how tech journalists are grappling with the current political moment in the United States and beyond. In this episode, you'll hear the first session of the day, which features Tech Policy Press Associate Editor Ramsha Jahangir in discussion with Rina Chandran , Rest of World; Natalia Anteleva , Coda Story; An...
Mar 30, 2025•37 min
On Tuesday, March 25th, Tech Policy Press hosted a webinar discussion to talk shop with others on the tech and democracy beat. We gathered seven colleagues from around the world to explore how tech journalists are grappling with the current political moment in the United States and beyond. In this episode, you'll hear the first session of the day, which features a discussion with Michael Masnick from Techdirt, Vittoria Elliot from Wired , and Emmanuel Maiberg from 404 Media. This session explore...
Mar 30, 2025•46 min
Every now and again, a story that has a significant technology element really breaks through and drives the news cycle. This week, the Trump administration is reeling after The Atlantic magazine's Jeffrey Goldberg revealed that he was on the receiving end of Yemen strike plans in a Signal group chat between US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and other top US national security officials. User behavior, a common failure point, appears to be to blame in this scenario. But what are the broader con...
Mar 27, 2025•28 min
Last week, President Donald Trump ordered the firing of two Democratic members of the Federal Trade Commission, an independent agency that enforces federal consumer protection and competition laws and that, under former President Joe Biden , turned up its scrutiny of the tech sector's biggest companies. The two commissioners, Alvaro Bedoya and Rebecca Kelly Slaughter , plan to challenge Trump's firing, which they said will only benefit billionaire tech moguls like Mark Zuckerberg and Jeff Bezos ...
Mar 25, 2025•40 min
What is necessary to develop a future that is less hospitable to authoritarianism and, indeed, to fascism? How do we build collective power against authoritarian forms of corporate and state power? Is an alternative form of computing possible? Dan McQuillan is the author of Resisting AI: An Anti-fascist Approach to Artificial Intelligence , published in 2022 by Bristol University Press.
Mar 23, 2025•53 min
Dr. Alondra Nelson holds the Harold F. Linder Chair and leads the Science, Technology, and Social Values Lab at the Institute for Advanced Study, where she has served on the faculty since 2019. From 2021 to 2023, she was deputy assistant to President Joe Biden and acting director and principal deputy director for science and society of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. She was deeply involved in the Biden administration’s approach to artificial intelligence. She led the de...
Mar 16, 2025•31 min
