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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Episodes
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RightsCon Organizers Take Stock of What's Next After Zambia
May 1000:29:30Summary readyJust days before it was set to begin last week in Lusaka, RightsCon organizer Access Now was forced to announce the annual digital and human rights conference would not proceed after it learned of Chinese pressure on the Zambian government to restrict the participation of delegates from Taiwan. The effective cancellation of the event was a huge blow to Access Now, its local civil society partners in Zambia, and to the global community of rights defenders, some of whom were already traveling when they got the news. To many, it is an ominous signal about the growing challenges to doing pro-democracy and pro-human rights work in an increasingly authoritarian world. To learn more about what transpired and what’s next, Justin Hendrix spoke to the head of Access Now, Alejandro Mayoral Baños, and the director of RightsCon, Nikki Gladstone, about their experience, why this moment matters, and what's next for the community they convene.
SummaryAI, Gig Work, and the Future of Nursing
May 300:26:28Summary readyIn this episode, Tech Policy Press fellow Chris Mills Rodrigo speaks with Katie Wells, a senior fellow at the AI Now Institute and the author of two reports on the 'gig-ification' of nursing, to dig into how AI is reshaping the profession from the inside out. Rodrigo and Wells examine what's actually being deployed in hospitals: scheduling algorithms, productivity tools, and a fast-growing app-based contingent workforce that is turning bedside care into something closer to gig work. Wells reports that these trends prefigure the broader adoption of AI in healthcare, raising questions not only about the stability of the profession and the quality of patient care, but also about how the degradation of healthcare work affects communities.
SummaryUnpacking the SECURE Data Act
Apr 2600:29:24Summary readyWith artificial intelligence systems increasingly deployed by companies and governments to hoover up every possible unit of data and to make consequential decisions about people's employment, benefits, credit, education, housing, and health care, the United States still has no baseline federal privacy law. This week, House Republicans put a new bill on the table called the SECURE Data Act. Today’s guest is Eric Null, director of the Privacy & Data Project at the Center for Democracy & Technology. He says the bill has significant structural weaknesses even as it seeks to preempt stronger state protections that are already in place.
SummaryAttorney General Raúl Torrez on What's Next in New Mexico's Case Against Meta
Apr 2200:30:06Summary readyNew Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez sued Meta in December 2023, alleging the company made false public statements about the safety of its platforms while knowing internally that its products facilitated child sexual exploitation. On March 24, a Santa Fe jury found Meta liable for willful violations of New Mexico’s Unfair Practices Act, awarding $375 million in civil penalties. The next phase is a bench trial, starting May 4, to decide the state's public nuisance claim and determine remedies. Justin Hendrix spoke to Torrez about the types of reforms the state hopes to secure.
SummaryWhy Palantir's ImmigrationOS Endangers Democracy and the Rule of Law
Apr 1900:41:43Summary readyWhat if the most consequential immigration policy decisions in America aren't being made by elected officials, or even by government agencies—but by software? Right now, a sprawling ecosystem of private technology vendors is quietly reshaping who gets flagged, detained, and deported in the United States. At the center of it is Palantir's ImmigrationOS, a platform for end-to-end automated enforcement. But it’s just one piece of a much larger machine.Today we’ll hear from the authors of a new law review article that argues that private tech vendors have become a third governing power in American immigration—sitting between the federal government and the states, encoding policy into code, and building infrastructure that increasingly poses a threat to democracy and the rule of law. Guests include:Chinmayi Sharma, an associate professor at Fordham Law School who is also affiliated with the Strauss Center at University of Texas, the Atlantic Council Cyber Statecraft Initiative, the Center for Democracy and Technology, the Georgetown Center on Privacy and Technology, and the Center for AI and Digital Policy.Sam Adler, a third year law student at Fordham Law School.
SummaryWhat to Do If the AI Bubble Bursts
Apr 1200:30:32Summary readyIf you read, watch, or listen to financial news, you’ll find there is a boom in discussion over whether the AI boom is a bubble, and what the consequences might be if it bursts. Today’s guest says that if such a crash occurs, it will represent a significant policy opportunity—a potential point of intervention that could lead to meaningful reform of the tech sector.Asad Ramzanali is the Director of AI and Technology Policy at the Vanderbilt Policy Accelerator for Political Economy and Regulation, and author of the recent report, "After the AI Crash.""Instead of waiting for the crisis and hastily developing insufficient policies, lawmakers should prepare for this anticipated crisis now," he says.
SummaryProject Maven and the Age of AI Warfare
Apr 900:47:11Summary readyProject Maven, a Department of Defense program launched in April 2017 to apply AI in military targeting and logistics, is now being used in live combat. Katrina Manson is a reporter and the author of Project Maven: A Marine Colonel, His Team, and the Dawn of AI Warfare, a book just published by W.W. Norton & Company that tells the history of the program. Justin Hendrix spoke to her about the book and about recent events, including the use of AI targeting in the war in Iran and the battle between the Pentagon and Anthropic over 'red lines' such as the use of AI for lethal autonomous weapons.
SummaryX is a Preferred Tool for American Propaganda. What Does It Mean?
Apr 500:33:59Summary readyLast week, The Guardian reported that United States Secretary of State Marco Rubio has directed American embassies and consulates to counter foreign propaganda. Notably, the cable apparently endorses Elon Musk’s X as an “innovative” tool to help do it, even as it directs diplomats to coordinate with the US military’s psychological operations unit to counter what the administration deems as disinformation. Today’s guest is Kate Klonick, a law professor at St. John's University and a senior editor at Lawfare. In a piece on Lawfare last week, Klonick says that the State Department issuing a formal cable endorsing a specific social media platform for use in its messaging—and doing so in the same document that it encourages collaboration with military psychological operations—would have been nearly unthinkable until recent months. But it’s just the latest in a series of developments that suggest Elon Musk’s X is regarded as the preferred tool of the state. Let’s jump right in.
SummaryOlivier Sylvain Wants to Reclaim the Internet from Big Tech
Mar 2900:45:38Summary readyThis was a landmark week for tech accountability in US courts. Juries in New Mexico and California delivered verdicts finding tech giants Meta and Google liable for harms to young users on their platforms, decisions that are projected to open the door to more lawsuits alleging that social media creates addiction or endangers kids.Today’s guest sees these developments as positive and in line with the types of thinking he believes will help improve the internet. Olivier Sylvain is a professor at Fordham Law School and the author of a new book titled Reclaiming the Internet: How Big Tech Took Control—and How We Can Take It Back, published by Columbia Global Reports. Justin Hendrix interviewed him at Book Culture, a bookstore on 112th Street in New York City.
SummaryHow to Study the Phenomenon of Tech Hype
Mar 2900:45:35Summary readyAI hype is everywhere, and the CEOs of many tech firms are promising that the tech will soon eclipse human intelligence. The trillions in investment towards this goal and the massive deployment of capital and the human and natural resources it purchases both requires this kind of hype and causes it to compound. Today’s guests are studying this phenomenon from a variety of perspectives, building out a line of inquiry they call "Hype Studies." It's the subject of an occasional series of contributions to Tech Policy Press. Guests include:Jascha Bareis, a postdoctoral political scientist at the University of Fribourg;Andreu Belsunces Gonçalves, a sociologist of design and technology pursuing a PhD at the Tecnopolítica unit of the Open University of Catalonia;Marché Arends, a South African independent investigative journalist.
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