Podcast
The Tech Policy Press Podcast
Hosted by Tech Policy Press · EN
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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Local Reporter Neil Strebig on Covering xAI's Expansion in Memphis and Beyond
3d ago00:42:57Summary readyIn June 2024 the Greater Memphis, Tennessee Chamber of Commerce announced Elon Musk's artificial intelligence company, xAI, would build its "Colossus" data center in an old Electrolux factory. Two years on, the story continues to expand alongside the company’s growing footprint, with a second campus, Colossus II, across the state line in Southaven, Mississippi; a contested gray water recycling plant; an ever-rising count of gas turbines; multiple lawsuits; and communities in South Memphis still pressing for straight answers.Few people have tracked all of it more closely than Neil Strebig, a reporter with The Commercial Appeal in Memphis who has covered the xAI story daily from the beginning. He’s attended community meetings and hearings, filed right-to-know requests, parsed the differing interpretations of the Clean Air Act by the EPA, the Shelby County Health Department and the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality, counted turbines, and spent time with residents living alongside the facilities. The result is a level of detail that few can match.In this conversation, Strebig brings us up to speed on the latest developments — including a newly updated lawsuit citing unpermitted turbines in Southaven, the implications of the SpaceX IPO and the impending IPOs of other AI firms, and the stalled water recycling plant Memphis leaders had counted on. And, he reflects on what it has been like to chase facts as the story spread across two states and a thicket of jurisdictions.
SummaryAlex Stamos on Why the US Should Lift Its Fable and Mythos Export Ban
1w ago00:31:37Summary readyLate on Friday, June 12, Anthropic announced it had received a letter from the United States Department of Commerce notifying the company that the government had issued an export control directive forcing it to suspend all access to its AI models Fable 5 and Mythos 5 by any foreign national, whether inside or outside the United States, including Anthropic's own foreign-national employees. To comply, the company disabled access to both models for all its customers. The Wall Street Journal called the episode "one of the most powerful examples yet of US government intervention in the AI race."The White House move has left many experts baffled. And, it is raising alarms in foreign capitals about the wisdom of relying on American AI, suggesting the US will operate ad hoc, with access to advanced models revoked on a case-by-case basis. Against that backdrop, a group of cybersecurity leaders organized by Alex Stamos has urged the administration to reverse course in an open letter. Currently, Stamos is chief product officer at an AI security startup called Corridor. Previously, he was chief security officer at Facebook, before he left to found the Stanford Internet Observatory. Justin Hendrix caught up with him on Tuesday, June 16.
SummaryUnpacking the Great American Artificial Intelligence Act of 2026
1w ago00:26:35Summary readyOn June 4, Reps. Jay Obernolte (R-Calif.) and Lori Trahan (D-Mass.) released a 269-page bipartisan discussion draft of a bill called the Great American Artificial Intelligence Act of 2026. On the same date, they published an opinion in Bloomberg Law calling for feedback on the draft. “This discussion draft isn’t a final product,” they wrote. “It’s the start of a serious national conversation with workers, researchers, startups, frontier labs, educators, civil society, state leaders, and the American people.” Rep. Trahan joined the podcast to discuss the draft and some of the early criticism levied against it from civil society groups.
SummaryContemplating 'Muskism' and the Age of Trillionaires
2w ago00:49:18Summary readyOn June 12, SpaceX will reportedly offer 555,555,555 shares at $135 apiece in an initial public offering. The IPO is expected to give SpaceX a market value of $1.77 trillion, instantly making it one of the most valuable companies in the world. When combined with his holdings in Tesla, the IPO may also make SpaceX founder Elon Musk—already the world’s richest man—the world’s first trillionaire. Today’s guests are Quinn Slobodian and Ben Tarnoff, authors of Muskism: A Guide for the Perplexed. The book considers its subject as a specimen of the current geopolitical moment, promising an “examination of Elon Musk as a symptom and avatar of our postliberal age.”
SummaryWhy the AI Policy Debate Should Focus More on the Harness and Protocol Layers
3w ago00:47:21Summary readyRaffi Krikorian, the chief technology officer of Mozilla, has spent the past few months building an argument that the central question in AI isn't open versus closed, but owning versus renting—whether AI becomes something we control or something we lease from a handful of companies. A technologist by background with stops at Twitter, Uber, and the Democratic National Committee, he writes about all of this in his newsletter, Owners Not Renters, and in other outlets, most recently in a New York Times op-ed on what he called the "Mythos moment." Justin Hendrix spoke to him about the idea that generosity is the hidden infrastructure of the internet, how to expand access to powerful AI tools rather than closing it down for security's sake, how to overcome misaligned incentives to build a better information environment, how to counter surveillance, and why those concerned with AI governance should spend more time thinking about the protocol and harness layers.
SummaryWhy the EU's Data Center Boom Is a Black Box
3w ago00:35:26Summary readyAs Brussels prepares to unveil a tech sovereignty package on June 3, the political tone around Europe’s digital infrastructure is shifting. A recent investigation by Investigate Europe, published with partners including Tech Policy Press, shows that a confidentiality clause inserted into an EU regulation after industry lobbying allows companies to keep site-level data center energy and water use out of public view, and many operators are not reporting at all. The finding highlights a disconnect between policy ambition and oversight.What does expanding “technological sovereignty” with real accountability look like in practice? To explore this, Tech Policy Press senior editor Ramsha Jahangir spoke with Nico Schmidt, the journalist behind the Investigate Europe report, and Christiaan van Veen of Leitmotiv, a Dutch research and policy consultancy that has analyzed data center permit filings in the Netherlands.
SummaryTaking the Temperature of Tech Policy Debates in Brussels at CPDP
3w ago00:43:28Summary readyIn this episode, we reflect on the 19th edition of CPDP (Computers, Privacy and Data Protection), the major Brussels tech policy conference, held last week under this year's theme, "Competing Visions, Shared Futures." We discuss the dominant debates from the gathering, including the contested Digital Omnibus simplification package, digital and tech sovereignty, researcher access to platform data under the Digital Services Act, the rising prominence of child online safetWe feature voices from across the conference, including Tech Policy Press contributing editor Mark Scott, AlgorithmWatch's Oliver Marsh, the Knight-Georgetown Institute's Peter Chapman, the Center for Democracy and Technology's Marie Seck, Project SENTIMENT's Joel Baumann, Mozilla's Svea Windwehr, and conference director Barbara Lazarotto.And, you’ll hear two interviews: a conversation with European Data Protection Supervisor Wojciech Wiewiórowski on whether the GDPR needs reform amid the simplification push, and a wide-ranging reflection from CPDP founder Paul De Hert on how the conference and the field of data protection have evolved over nearly two decades, the value of reasoned disagreement, and why Europe should be more self-critical.
SummaryThe Fight for Civil Rights in the Age of AI
May 2400:47:21Summary readyOn Tuesday, May 12, the Center for Civil Rights and Technology hosted its 2026 annual convening, "All Eyes on Tech: Power, Protection, and the Fights for Civil Rights in the Age of AI," at the Mayflower Hotel in Washington, DC. The Center is a joint project of The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights and The Leadership Conference Education Fund, and it engages in advocacy, education, and research on issues at the intersection of civil rights and technology policy.During the event, Tech Policy Press editor Justin Hendrix hosted a conversation with Dr. Ruha Benjamin, an acclaimed author, professor of African American Studies at Princeton University, and founding director of the Ida B. Wells Just Data Lab; and Alejandra Montoya-Boyer, vice president of the Center for Civil Rights and Technology. The conversation touched on the necessity of cultural and narrative work as the foundation for policy work; how to build collective power and alternatives, not just guardrails; and why it is important to focus on the people behind technology and their motivations, not just technology itself.
SummaryUnpacking the Goals of Common Sense Media's Youth AI Safety Institute
May 2100:29:23Summary readyOn May 5, Common Sense Media, the nonprofit known for its entertainment and technology recommendations for parents, launched its Youth AI Safety Institute, backed by a $20 million annual budget to “define what child-safe AI actually means” and to “rigorously test AI products” and assign them ratings.The Youth Safety Institute will be led by Bruce Reed, who joined Common Sense Media as Head of AI in March 2025 after serving as President Joe Biden's White House Deputy Chief of Staff, where Politico dubbed him the "AI Whisperer" for leading Biden’s AI Executive Order and securing voluntary commitments from frontier labs. Last year, Time named him one of the 100 most influential people in AI. Reed previously worked with Common Sense as a senior tech-policy adviser from 2015 to 2020, and was a lead negotiator on the 2018 California Consumer Privacy Act.Justin Hendrix caught up with Reed about how he views the current state of AI and child safety and his goals for the Institute.
SummaryWhat's At Stake in Chatrie v. United States
May 1700:41:35Summary readyAt the end of last month, the Supreme Court heard oral argument in Chatrie v. United States. The case involves the use of a geofence warrant, which police use to demand information on all cellphones within a certain area and period of time. The outcome of the case, which revolves around Fourth Amendment questions, could have profound implications for location tracking and privacy in the digital age. To learn more, Tech Policy Press fellow Jake Laperruque, who is monitoring the case, spoke to Michael Price, who serves as litigation director for the Fourth Amendment Center at National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL), one of the lawyers representing the plaintiff.
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