This episode focuses on the role of shareholder activism in pursuing transparency and accountability from tech firms. In a week where board resolutions are up for a vote at Meta and Alphabet related to each company's development and deployment of artificial intelligence, Justin Hendrix spoke to five individuals working at the intersection of sustainable investing in tech accountability: Michael Connor , Executive Director of Open MIC Jessica Dheere , Advocacy Director at Open MIC Natasha Lamb , ...
Jun 02, 2024•42 min
As we documented in Tech Policy Press, when the US Senate AI working group released its roadmap on policy on May 17th, many outside organizations were underwhelmed at best, and some were fiercely critical of the closed door process that produced it. In the days after the report was announced, a group of nonprofit and academic organizations put out what they call a " shadow report " to the US Senate AI policy roadmap. The shadow report is intended as a complement or counterpoint to the Senate wor...
May 26, 2024•38 min
A conversation with Marwa Fatafta , who serves as policy and advocacy director for the nonprofit Access now, which has worked on digital civil rights, connectivity and censorship issues for the past 15 years. Along with other groups, Access Now has engaged Meta in recent months over what it says is the “systematic censorship of Palestinian voices” amidst the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.
May 26, 2024•41 min
One tech journalist whose byline always draws me in is Chris Stokel-Walker . He writes for multiple publications including The New York Times , The Washington Post , The Economist , Wired , Fast Company , and New Scientist . Now, he’s got a new book out: How AI Ate the World: A Brief History of Artificial Intelligence - And Its Long Future . Last week, I had the chance to speak with him about it, and about how he covers technology and tech policy generally....
May 19, 2024•36 min
On Wednesday, May 15, 2024, a bipartisan US Senate working group led by Majority Leader Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) released a report titled "Driving U.S. Innovation in Artificial Intelligence: A Roadmap for Artificial Intelligence Policy in the United States Senate." Just hours after the report was released, Justin Hendrix spoke to two civil rights advocates who are working on AI policy about the good and the bad of the Senate report, and more broadly about how to set AI policy priorities that en...
May 19, 2024•35 min
Last October, Dr. Jasmine McNealy , as an associate professor at the University of Florida, a Senior Fellow in Tech Policy with the Mozilla Foundation, and a Faculty Associate at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University, wrote in Tech Policy Press about the need for a policy agenda for "Rural AI." “Rural communities matter,” she wrote. “And that means they should matter when it comes to the development of policies on artificial intelligence.” The piece was a prev...
May 12, 2024•42 min
The Hippocratic oath, named for a Greek physician who lived ~2,500 years ago that some call the father of modern medicine, is one of the earliest examples of an expression of professional ethics. It is a symbol of a profession that has built in a number of protections for patient interests, with ethical frameworks and requirements that seek to assure they are maintained. Today’s guest is Chinmayi Sharma , an Associate Professor at Fordham Law School. Sharma thinks there should be a similar profe...
May 11, 2024•46 min
One topic we come back to again and again on this podcast is disinformation. In many episodes, we’ve discussed various phenomena related to this ambiguous term, and we’ve tried to use science to guide the way. But the guests in this episode suggest that in the broader political discourse, the term is more than over used. Often, they say, lawmakers and other elites that employ it are crossing the line into hyping the effects of disinformation, which they say only helps propagandists and diminishe...
May 05, 2024•44 min
In an introduction to a special issue of the journal First Monday on topics related to AI and power, Jenna Burrell and Jacob Metcalf argue that "what can and cannot be said inside of mainstream computer science publications appears to be constrained by the power, wealth, and ideology of a small cohort of industrialists. The result is that shaping discourse about the AI industry is itself a form of power that cannot be named inside of computer science." The papers in the journal go on to interrog...
May 04, 2024•53 min
Last week President Joe Biden signed into law a measure that would force the Chinese firm ByteDance to divest its ownership of TikTok, or risk the app being banned in the US. The measure also included restrictions on the sale of personal data to foreign entities. What are the implications of these moves for US and global tech policy going forward? What will the inevitable legal challenges look like? To learn more, Justin Hendrix spoke with Anupam Chander , law professor at Georgetown and a visit...
Apr 28, 2024•50 min
Subcommittee on Innovation, Data, and Commerce held a hearing: “Legislative Solutions to Protect Kids Online and Ensure Americans’ Data Privacy Rights.” Between the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) and the American Privacy Rights Act (APRA), both of which have bipartisan and bicameral support, Congress may be closer to acting on the issues than it has been recent memory. One of the witnesses that the hearing was David Brody , who is managing attorney of the Digital Justice Initiative of the Lawyers...
Apr 21, 2024•28 min
This episode features two conversations. Both relate to efforts to better understand the impact of technology on society. In the first, we’ll hear from Sayash Kapoor , a PhD candidate at the Department of Computer Science and the Center for Information Technology Policy at Princeton University, and Rishi Bommasani , the society lead at the Stanford Center for Research on Foundation Models. They are two of the authors of a recent paper titled On the Societal Impact of Open Foundation Models . And...
Apr 14, 2024•57 min
Last week, a federal judge granted a motion to dismiss and strike a lawsuit brought by X Corp, formerly known as Twitter, against a nonprofit research outfit called The Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH). To learn more about why the ruling matters, Justin Hendrix spoke to Alex Abdo , the litigation director at the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University; Imran Ahmed , the CEO and founder of the Center for Countering Digital Hate; and Roberta Kaplan , a partner at the law f...
Apr 07, 2024•55 min
On this show, when we talk about technology and democracy, guests are often talking about the relationship between technology and existing democratic systems. Today's guest wants us to think more expansively about what doing democracy means and the role the technology can play in it. Nathan Schneider , an assistant professor of media studies at the University of Colorado Boulder, is the author of Governable Spaces: Democratic Design for Online Life ....
Apr 06, 2024•39 min
Last year, researchers at Human Rights Watch wrote about the global backlash against women’s rights. In multiple countries, they say, hard-won progress has been reversed amidst a wave of anti-feminist rhetoric and policies, and it may take decades to reverse the trajectory. It’s against that backdrop that today’s guest pursues concerns at the intersection of tech and digital rights with women’s human rights. Justin Hendrix speaks with Lucy Purdon, the founder of Courage Everywhere and author of ...
Mar 31, 2024•35 min
On Monday, March 18, the US Supreme Court heard oral argument in Murthy v Missouri . In this episode, Tech Policy Press reporting fellow Dean Jackson is joined by two experts- St. John's University School of Law associate professor Kate Klonick and UNC Center on Technology Policy director Matt Perault - to digest the oral argument, what it tells us about which way the Court might go, and what more should be done to create good policy on government interactions with social media platforms when it...
Mar 24, 2024•52 min
On March 18, the US Supreme Court will hear oral argument in Murthy v Missouri, a case that asks the justices to consider whether the government coerced or “significantly encouraged” social media executives to remove disfavored speech in violation of the First Amendment during the COVID-19 pandemic. Tech Policy Press reporting fellow Dean Jackson speaks to experts including the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University's Mayze Teitler and Jennifer Jones , and the Tech Justice Law P...
Mar 17, 2024•1 hr 23 min
At INFORMED 2024, a conference hosted by the Knight Foundation in January, one panel focused on the subject of information integrity, race, and US elections. The conversation was compelling, and the panelists agreed to reprise it for this podcast. So today we're turning over the mic to Spencer Overton , a Professor of Law at the George Washington University, and the director of the GW Law School's Multiracial Democracy Project. He's joined by three other experts, including: Brandi Collins-Dexter...
Mar 10, 2024•49 min
On Monday, Feb. 26, 2024, the US Supreme Court heard oral arguments for Moody v. NetChoice, LLC and NetChoice, LLC v. Paxton . The cases are on similar but distinct state laws in Florida and Texas that would restrict social media companies’ ability to moderate content on their platforms. Justin Hendrix speaks with Tech Policy Press staff writer Gabby Miller and contributing editor Ben Lennett about key highlights from the discussion....
Mar 03, 2024•28 min
This week, a public consultation period ended for a new Hong Kong national security law, known as Article 23. Article 23 ostensibly targets a wide array of crimes, including treason, theft of state secrets, espionage, sabotage, sedition, and "external interference" from foreign governments. The Hong Kong legislature, dominated by pro-Beijing lawmakers, is expected to approve it, even as its critics argue that the law criminalizes basic human rights, such as the freedom of expression, signaling a...
Feb 29, 2024•46 min
If you’ve been listening to this podcast for a while, you know we’ve spent countless hours together talking about the problems of mis- and disinformation, and what to do about them. And, we’ve tried to focus on the science, on empirical research that can inform efforts to design a better media and technology environment that helps rather than hurts democracy and social cohesion. Today’s guests are Jon Bateman and Dean Jackson . The two have just produced a report for the Carnegie Endowment for I...
Feb 25, 2024•48 min
A new book that ships this week from Oxford University Press titled simply Media and January 6th assembles a varied collection of experts that aim to shed light on the interplay between the media and the bloody coup attempt that then President Donald Trump led to try to hang on to power after he lost the 2020 election to Joe Biden . It delves into the reasons behind the occurrence of January 6th and highlights the pivotal role of media in this context. The book is structured to explore three ess...
Feb 25, 2024•47 min
It's become trite to say there are a lot of elections taking place this year. But of course, technology is playing a role in them all. At Tech Policy Press, we're lucky to have a group of seven fellows this year who are based on four continents. They are paying close attention to elections in the nations they know best. To learn more about the recent election in Pakistan, its chaotic aftermath, and the unique role of technology and events there, I spoke to one of our fellows last week: Ramsha Ja...
Feb 24, 2024•18 min
Today's guests are Jonathan Stray , a senior scientist at the Center for Human Compatible AI at the University of California Berkeley, and Ravi Iyer , managing director of the Neely Center at the University of Southern California's Marshall School. Both are keenly interested in what happens when platforms optimize for variables other than engagement, and whether they can in fact optimize for prosocial outcomes. With several coauthors, they recently published a paper based in large part on discus...
Feb 18, 2024•35 min
In May 2022, Alvaro Bedoya was sworn in as a Commissioner of the US Federal Trade Commission following his nomination by President Joe Biden and confirmation in the Senate. In this conversation, Commissioner Bedoya discusses a recent settlement over the commercial use of facial recognition technologies and what it should signal to other businesses, voice cloning and the growing problem of impersonations utilizing AI, and how he thinks about the future....
Feb 18, 2024•33 min
Multiple past episodes of this podcast have focused on the topic of AI governance. But today’s guest, Blair Attard-Frost , has put forward a set of ideas they term "AI countergovernance." These are alternative mechanisms for community-led and worker-led governance that serve as means for resisting or contesting power, particularly as it manifests in AI systems and the companies and governments that advance them....
Feb 11, 2024•38 min
On Wednesday, January 31st, the US Senate Judiciary Committee hosted a hearing titled "Big Tech and the Online Child Sexual Exploitation Crisis." The CEOs of Meta, TikTok, X, Discord and Snap were called to the Capitol to answer questions from lawmakers on their efforts to protect children from sexual exploitation, drug trafficking, dangerous content, and other online harms. Gabby Miller reported on the hearing from New York, and Haajrah Gilani reported from Washington D.C.
Feb 04, 2024•22 min
Last year, the World Privacy Forum , a nonprofit research organization, conducted an international review of AI governance tools . The organization analyzed various documents, frameworks, and technical material related to AI governance from around the world. Importantly, the review found that a significant percentage of the AI governance tools include faulty AI fixes that could ultimately undermine the fairness and explainability of AI systems. Justin Hendrix talked to Kate Kaye , one of the rep...
Jan 28, 2024•36 min
In October 2022, a group of researchers published a manifesto establishing a Coalition for Independent Technology Research. “Society needs trustworthy, independent research to relieve the harms of digital technologies and advance the common good,” they wrote. “Research can help us understand ourselves more clearly, identify problems, hold power accountable, imagine the world we want, and test ideas for change. In a democracy, this knowledge comes from academics, journalists, civil society, and c...
Jan 21, 2024•41 min
Today’s guest is Robert Weissman , president of the nonprofit consumer advocacy organization Public Citizen. He is the author of a letter addressed to the California Attorney General that raises significant concerns about OpenAI’s 501(c)(3) nonprofit status. The letter questions whether OpenAI has deviated from its nonprofit purposes, alleging that it may be acting under the control of its for-profit subsidiary, potentially violating its nonprofit mission. The letter raises broader issues about ...
Jan 14, 2024•20 min
