Description
Tech Policy Press is a nonprofit media and community venture intended to provoke new ideas, debate and discussion at the intersection of technology and democracy. The Sunday Show is its podcast.
You can find us at https://techpolicy.press/, where you can join the newsletter.
Episodes
- 2024 / 7 / 21The Future of Privacy in the Age of AIIt goes without saying that privacy and the creation of laws and regulations around it are fundamental to determining how we will live and work with technology, and whether technology operates in service of...
- 2024 / 7 / 21Silicon Valley Leaders Cast Their Lot with Donald TrumpIn the past week, multiple Silicon Valley billionaires announced endorsements of former President and 2024 Republican nominee Donald Trump. To dig a bit deeper into their motivations to support Trump and his...
- 2024 / 7 / 14What Comes After Murthy v MissouriOn June 26, the US Supreme Court issued a 6-3 ruling in Murthy v Missouri, a cased that considered whether the Biden administration violated the First Amendment in its efforts to address COVID-19 mis- and...
- 2024 / 7 / 14Data Rights in the Age of AIIn this episode, David Carroll, an associate professor of media design in the MFA Design and Technology graduate program at the School of Art, Media and Technology at Parsons School of Design at The New...
- 2024 / 7 / 7Considering the Ethics of AI AssistantsIn April, Google DeepMind published a paper that boasts 57 authors, including experts from a range of disciplines in different parts of Google, including DeepMind, Jigsaw, and Google Research, as well as...
- 2024 / 6 / 30Big Tech and the NewsNews and journalism organizations and dominant tech companies are in a years-long battle over content, clicks and revenue, and the tech companies are winning. What are policy options that encourage both the...
- 2024 / 6 / 23Internet Governance Is At A CrossroadsIn this episode, we explore a topic that sits at the heart of global digital policy: the contrasting visions of internet governance championed by the United States and its Western allies versus those promoted...
- 2024 / 6 / 23How China Regulates TechAngela Zhang is the author of High Wire: How China Regulates Big Tech and Governs Its Economy, published this year by Oxford University Press. With a career in the practice of law and in teaching it, Zhang...
- 2024 / 6 / 23Understanding the Digital Silk RoadIn October 2023, during the third Belt and Road Forum in Beijing, China's leader Xi Jinping signaled a shift in focus from more grandiose physical infrastructure projects to 'small yet smart' initiatives....
- 2024 / 6 / 21The Demise of CrowdTangle and What It Means for Independent Technology ResearchA topic we returned to often in this podcast is the dire need for independent technology researchers to have access to platform data. Without it, we cannot understand the extent of the harms and effects of...
- 2024 / 6 / 18Finding the Humanity in an Automated WorldMadhumita Murgia, AI editor at the Financial Times, is the author of a new book called Code Dependent: Living in the Shadow of AI. The book combines reporting and research to provide a look at the role that...
- 2024 / 6 / 16A Conversation with White House Office of Science and Technology Policy Director Arati PrabhakarDr. Arati Prabhakar the Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and Technology Policy and Science Advisor to President Joe Biden. This week, she hosted an event in Washington DC...
- 2024 / 6 / 10AI and Epistemic Risk: A Coming Crisis?What are the risks to democracy as AI is incorporated more and more into the systems and platforms we use to find and share information and engage in communication? In this episode, Justin Hendrix speaks with...
- 2024 / 6 / 9What's Next for Tech Policy in India After the ElectionsWhat role did technology play in India's elections, and what impact will the outcome have on tech policy in the country? Joining Justin Hendrix are three experts: Amber Sinha and Vandinika Shukla, both...
- 2024 / 6 / 6How Are Political Campaigners in the US Using Generative AI?The guests in this episode are authors of a new study titled Political Machines: Understanding the Role of AI in the US 2024 Elections and Beyond. The study is based on interviews with a variety of...
- 2024 / 6 / 2The Role of Shareholder Activism in Tech AccountabilityThis 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...
- 2024 / 5 / 26Shadow Report on AI Addresses What the US Senate MissedAs 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...
- 2024 / 5 / 26A Perspective on Meta's Moderation of Palestinian VoicesA 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....
- 2024 / 5 / 19Prioritizing Civil Rights in US AI Policy: Claudia Ruiz and Alejandra Montoya-BoyerOn 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...
- 2024 / 5 / 19AI: Past, Present, and Future with Chris Stokel-WalkerOne 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,...
- 2024 / 5 / 12What We're Talking About When We Talk About Rural AILast 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...
- 2024 / 5 / 11A Hippocratic Oath for AI? A Conversation with Chinmayi SharmaThe 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...
- 2024 / 5 / 5Don't Hype Disinfo, Say Disinfo ExpertsOne 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...
- 2024 / 5 / 4Resisting AI and the Consolidation of PowerIn 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...
- 2024 / 4 / 28What's Next for TikTok, and US Tech PolicyLast 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...
- 2024 / 4 / 21Securing Privacy Rights to Advance Civil RightsSubcommittee 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...
- 2024 / 4 / 14The Societal Impacts of Foundation Models, and Access to Data for ResearchersThis 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...
- 2024 / 4 / 7Elon Musk's X Loses in Court: Why It Matters for Independent Technology ResearchLast 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...
- 2024 / 4 / 6Nathan Schneider on Democratic Design for Online LifeOn 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...
- 2024 / 3 / 31Reforming Tech Amidst a Global Backlash Against Women's RightsLast 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...
- 2024 / 3 / 24Unpacking the Oral Argument in Murthy v MissouriOn 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...
- 2024 / 3 / 17What's at Stake in Murthy v Missouri?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...
- 2024 / 3 / 10Exploring the Intersection of Information Integrity, Race, and US ElectionsAt 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...
- 2024 / 3 / 3US Supreme Court Considers Florida and Texas Social Media LawsOn 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...
- 2024 / 2 / 29What Leverage Remains to Preserve Free Expression in Hong Kong?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,...
- 2024 / 2 / 25Evaluating the Role of Media in the January 6 Attack on the US CapitolA 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...
- 2024 / 2 / 25How to Counter Disinformation Based on ScienceIf 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...
- 2024 / 2 / 24Pakistan and the Intersection of Tech & ElectionsIt'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...
- 2024 / 2 / 18Ranking Content On Signals Other Than User EngagementToday'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...
- 2024 / 2 / 18FTC Commissioner Alvaro Bedoya on Algorithmic Fairness, Voice Cloning, and the FutureIn 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...
- 2024 / 2 / 11Imagining AI CountergovernanceMultiple 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...
- 2024 / 2 / 4Tech CEOs Face the US Senate on Child SafetyOn 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...
- 2024 / 1 / 28How to Assess AI Governance ToolsLast 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...
- 2024 / 1 / 21How to Defend Independent Technology Research from Corporate and Political OppositionIn 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...
- 2024 / 1 / 14Questioning OpenAI's Nonprofit StatusToday’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...
- 2024 / 1 / 7Evaluating Social Media's Role in the Israel-Hamas WarToday is the three month anniversary of the vicious Hamas attack and abduction of hostages that ignited the current war in Gaza. Just before the New Year, the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab...
- 2023 / 12 / 31Exposing the Rotten Reality of AI Training DataIn a report released December 20, 2023, the Stanford Internet Observatory said it had detected more than 1,000 instances of verified child sexual abuse imagery in a significant dataset utilized for training...
- 2023 / 12 / 24An FDA for AI?If you’ve listened to some of the dialogue in hearings on Capitol Hill about how to regulate AI, you’ve heard various folks suggest the need for a regulatory agency to govern, in particular, general purpose...
- 2023 / 12 / 17What Are We Building, and Why?At the end of this year in which the hype around artificial intelligence seemed to increase in volume with each passing week, it’s worth stepping back and asking whether we need to slow down and put just as...
- 2023 / 12 / 10Tracking Oversight of Surveillance in the US and EUIn both the US and Europe, policymakers are making important decisions about the governance of the bulk collection of communications and data for intelligence purposes. In the US, some of these questions are...