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PODCAST

The Tech Policy Press Podcast

Tech Policy Press

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. You can find us at https://techpolicy.press/, where you can join the newsletter.

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All Episodes

49:21

Exploring the Intersection of Information Integrity,...

The Tech Policy Press Podcast ·

2024/03/10

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, a

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28:20

US Supreme Court Considers Florida and Texas Social...

The Tech Policy Press Podcast ·

2024/03/03

On Monday, Feb. 26, 2024, the US Supreme Court heard oral arguments forMoody v. NetChoice, LLCandNetChoice, 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.

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45:33

What Leverage Remains to Preserve Free Expression in...

The Tech Policy Press Podcast ·

2024/02/29

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

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47:24

Evaluating the Role of Media in the January 6 Attack...

The Tech Policy Press Podcast ·

2024/02/25

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

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47:57

How to Counter Disinformation Based on Science

The Tech Policy Press Podcast ·

2024/02/25

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

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17:53

Pakistan and the Intersection of Tech & Elections

The Tech Policy Press Podcast ·

2024/02/24

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

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33:22

FTC Commissioner Alvaro Bedoya on Algorithmic...

The Tech Policy Press Podcast ·

2024/02/18

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.

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34:37

Ranking Content On Signals Other Than User Engagement

The Tech Policy Press Podcast ·

2024/02/18

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 discussion

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38:28

Imagining AI Countergovernance

The Tech Policy Press Podcast ·

2024/02/11

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.

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21:30

Tech CEOs Face the US Senate on Child Safety

The Tech Policy Press Podcast ·

2024/02/04

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.

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36:18

How to Assess AI Governance Tools

The Tech Policy Press Podcast ·

2024/01/28

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 report’s

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41:29

How to Defend Independent Technology Research from...

The Tech Policy Press Podcast ·

2024/01/21

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

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19:50

Questioning OpenAI's Nonprofit Status

The Tech Policy Press Podcast ·

2024/01/14

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 the

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46:12

Evaluating Social Media's Role in the Israel-Hamas War

The Tech Policy Press Podcast ·

2024/01/07

Today 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 (DFRLab) published a report titled “Distortion by Design: How Social Media Platforms Shaped Our Initial Understanding of the Israel-Hamas Conflict.” This week, Justin Hendrix spoke to the report’s authors— Emerson T. Brooking, Layla Mashkoor, and Jacqueline Malaret— about their observations of

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40:16

Exposing the Rotten Reality of AI Training Data

The Tech Policy Press Podcast ·

2023/12/31

In 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 generative AI systems such as Stable Diffusion 1.5. This troubling discovery builds on prior research into the “dubious curation” of large-scale datasets used to train AI systems, and raises concerns that such content may contributed to the capability of AI image generators in producing realistic

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34:23

An FDA for AI?

The Tech Policy Press Podcast ·

2023/12/24

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 AI systems that can be deployed across a wide range of applications. One existing agency is often mentioned as a potential model: the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). But how would applying the FDA work in practice? Where does the model break down when it comes to AI and related technologies,

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48:46

What Are We Building, and Why?

The Tech Policy Press Podcast ·

2023/12/17

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 much effort into questions about what it is we are building and why. In today’s episode, we’re going to hear from two researchers at two different points in their careers who spend their days grappling with questions about how we can develop systems and modes of thinking about systems that lead

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27:45

Europe Advances Its AI Act

The Tech Policy Press Podcast ·

2023/12/10

In April 2021, the European Commission introduced the first regulatory framework for AI within the EU. This Friday, after a marathon set of negotiations, EU policymakers reached a political consensus on the details of the legislation. This AI Act represents the most significant comprehensive effort in the world’s democracies to regulate a technology that promises major social and economic impact. While the AI Act will still have to go through a few final procedural steps before its enactment, the

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37:40

Tracking Oversight of Surveillance in the US and EU

The Tech Policy Press Podcast ·

2023/12/10

In 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 at the fore as Congress considers how to extend the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act's Section 702 program, which is set to expire at the start of 2024.To get a sense of how the broader policy debate around government surveillance is advancing in both the US and Europe, Justin Hendrix spoke

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41:57

Checking on the Progress of Content Moderators in Africa

The Tech Policy Press Podcast ·

2023/12/03

For the past two years, there has been a steady stream of news out of Kenya about the relationships between major tech firms – including Meta, TikTok and OpenAI – and outsourcing firms like Sama and Majorel that have employed content moderators on their behalf. In the spring of this year, more than 150 moderators announced the formation of the African Content Moderators Union, which advocates for better pay and working conditions, and a lawsuit against Meta is working its way through Kenya’s courts

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397 results

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