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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

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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30:32

The Saga at OpenAI: Lessons for Policymakers

The Tech Policy Press Podcast ·

2023/11/26

To learn more about the recent leadership crisis at OpenAI and what lessons policymakers should take from it, Justin Hendrix spoke to Karen Hao, a contributing writer at The Atlantic who is currently working on a book about OpenAI. With staff writer Charlie Warzel, Hao wrote a piece for The Atlantic under the headline "Inside the Chaos at OpenAI," drawing on conversations with current and former employees of the company.

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36:22

AI and Harms to Artists and Creators

The Tech Policy Press Podcast ·

2023/11/19

On November 15, the Open Markets Institute and the AI Now Institute hosted an event in Washington D.C. featuring discussion on how to understand the promise, threats, and practical regulatory challenges presented by artificial intelligence. Justin Hendrix moderated a discussion on harms to artists and creators, exploring questions around copyright and fair use, the ways in which AI is shaping the entire incentive structure for creative labor, and the economic impacts of the "junkification" of online

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38:55

Broken Code: A Conversation with Jeff Horwitz

The Tech Policy Press Podcast ·

2023/11/14

This episode explores Broken Code: Inside Facebook and the Fight to Expose its Harmful Secrets, a new book by Wall Street Journal technology reporter Jeff Horwitz. His relentless coverage of Meta, including first reporting on the documents brought forward by whistleblower Frances Haugen in the fall of 2021, has been pivotal in shedding light on the complex interplay between social media platforms, society, and democracy. Justin Hendrix talks to him about his journey, new details revealed in the

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32:57

Policing the City: A Conversation with Matthew Guariglia

The Tech Policy Press Podcast ·

2023/11/12

Today's guest is Dr. Matthew Guariglia, a senior policy analyst for the Electronic Frontier Foundation and author of the new book, Police and the Empire City: Race and the Origins of Modern Policing in New York, just out from Duke University Press. Guariglia says we're really living in a world of police surveillance built in the early 20th century, even as police departments wield powers that only a few years ago we thought might only be in the hands of federal intelligence agencies.

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40:37

Artificial Intelligence and Your Voice

The Tech Policy Press Podcast ·

2023/11/05

Today’s guest is Wiebke Hutiri, a researcher with a particular expertise indesign patterns for detecting and mitigating biasin AI systems. Her recent work has focused on voice biometrics, including work on an open source project called Fair EVA that gathers resources for researchers and developers to audit bias and discrimination in voice technology. Justin Hendrix spoke to Hutiri about voice biometrics, voice synthesis, and a range of issues and concerns these technologies present alongside their

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32:59

A Design Code for Big Tech

The Tech Policy Press Podcast ·

2023/10/29

Today’s guest is Ravi Iyer, a data scientist and moral psychologist at the Psychology of Technology Institute, which is a project of the University of Southern California Marshall School’s Neely Center for Ethical Leadership and Decision Making and the University of California-Berkeley’s Haas School of Business. He is also a former Facebook executive, and at the company he worked on a variety of civic integrity issues. The Neely Center has developed a design code that seeks to address a number of

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34:35

Unpacking the Bangalore Ideology

The Tech Policy Press Podcast ·

2023/10/22

At the September G20 summit in Delhi, the government of prime minister Narendra Modi promoted the country’s digital public infrastructure (DPI) as a model for the world for how to develop digital systems that enable countries to deliver social services and provide access to infrastructure and economic opportunities to residents. Other world leaders were enthusiastic about the pitch, endorsing a common framework for DPI systems. But even as an Indian vision for DPI appears to be attractive beyond

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43:19

How to Control Our Appetite for Misinformation

The Tech Policy Press Podcast ·

2023/10/15

A lot is written about the supply side of mis- and disinformation, including how propagandists and political leaders are using messages and platforms to impact public opinion. But less is written about the demand side. When it comes to false beliefs that each of us adopt and harbor to help us understand the world and events in it, what are the incentives and social dimensions that each of us as individuals and as members of the community are responding to that drive our appetite for misinformation

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45:54

Digital Empires: A Conversation with Anu Bradford

The Tech Policy Press Podcast ·

2023/10/08

There is atermyou've likely heard on the Tech Policy Press podcast in the past: theBrussels Effect. The term is meant to describe theEuropeanUnion’s outsized influenceonglobal markets through its regulations. You may not know that the term was first coined by Anu Bradford, a professor at Columbia Law School. She wrote a book about it calledThe Brussels Effect: How the European Union Rules the World. Now, she has a new book, just out from Oxford University Press, calledDigitalEmpires:

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43:30

Artificial Intelligence as a Tool of Repression

The Tech Policy Press Podcast ·

2023/10/04

The 13th installment of the Freedom on the Net report from Freedom House finds that "while advances in artificial intelligence offer benefits for society, they have also been used to increase the scale and efficiency of digital repression." Justin Hendrix spoke with two of the report's authors- Allie Funk and Kian Vesteinsson about their findings, which unfortunately do not represent a change of trajectory from prior years.

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25:50

The EU AI Act Enters Final Negotiations

The Tech Policy Press Podcast ·

2023/10/01

While US Senators are busy holding hearings and forums and posing for pictures with the CEOs of AI companies, the European Union is just months away from passing sweeping regulation of artificial intelligence.As negotiations continue between the European Parliament, Council, and Commission, Justin Hendrix spoke to one observer who is paying close attention to every detail: the Ada Lovelace Institute's European Public Policy Lead, Connor Dunlop. Connor recently published a briefing on five areas of

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39:36

The Luddites and Lessons for the Next Rebellion

The Tech Policy Press Podcast ·

2023/09/27

In Blood in the Machine: The Origins of the Rebellion Against Big Tech, Los Angeles Times technology columnist Brian Merchant has written a new history of perhaps one of the most famous movements for worker rights and power in the face of automation. The book sets the record straight on the Luddites, and unpacks what today’s workers can learn from them.

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38:52

Graphic Content, Trauma and Meaning: A Conversation...

The Tech Policy Press Podcast ·

2023/09/24

The ubiquity of cameras in our phones and our environment, coupled with massive social media networks that can share images and video in an instant, means we see often graphic and disturbing images with great frequency. How are people processing such material? And how is it different for people working in newsrooms, social media companies, and human rights and social justice organizations? What protections might be put in place to protect people from vicarious trauma and other harms, and what is the

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