Future Knowledge

Why preserve a cookbook? In the second episode of our special six-part series on Vanishing Culture , host Vida Vojić speaks with Katie Livingston , a doctoral researcher at Stanford University who studies domestic culture and women’s literature. Through the lens of family cookbooks, recipe collections, and food traditions, Katie explores why everyday cultural artifacts deserve preservation and wha...

As more of our cultural heritage moves online, a troubling question is emerging: what happens when the things we create, share, and cherish simply disappear? In the first episode of our special six-part series on Vanishing Culture , host Vida Vojić speaks with author and humanities scholar Luca Messarra , author of the Internet Archive’s Vanishing Culture , about the growing threat of cultural los...

In Transaction Denied: How Financial Institutions Silence Dissent and Undermine Democracy , author Rainey Reitman examines the growing phenomenon of financial censorship, in which banks, payment processors, and credit card networks can restrict access to financial services based on speech, identity, or perceived risk. From voting rights organizations and educators to adult content creators and can...

In AI Tools, Not Gods , policy researcher Caroline De Cock examines how myths about artificial intelligence—framing it as an all-knowing mind or an unstoppable force—have come to shape public policy and public understanding. By unpacking the narratives that dominate conversations about AI, De Cock argues for a clearer, evidence-based approach that recognizes AI for what it is: a set of human-built...

In Law and Technology , legal scholar Ryan Calo explores one of the defining challenges of our time: how societies can govern rapidly evolving technologies before those technologies reshape laws, rights, and institutions. Rather than treating each new innovation as a completely unique problem, Calo argues for a more durable framework for thinking about technology policy that helps lawmakers, court...

As artificial intelligence reshapes how information is created, accessed, and controlled, a quieter crisis is emerging: the potential loss of the web’s historical record. In this episode, tech writer Mike Masnick , Mark Graham of the Internet Archive, and public interest tech and media lawyer Kendra Albert come together for a timely conversation on what it means to preserve the web in the age of A...

In Vanishing Culture , editors Luca Messarra , Chris Freeland and Juliya Ziskina bring together voices exploring what it means to lose access to our shared cultural record in the digital age. From disappearing websites and delisted music to fragile licensing agreements and platform shutdowns, the book traces how corporate control, technological change, and neglect are reshaping what survives... an...

In Data Cartels , legal scholar Sarah Lamdan exposes the shadowy industry built around collecting, packaging, and selling our personal data. She reveals how powerful companies hoard information and use aggressive tactics to maintain control—turning data into a commodity that can deepen inequality and restrict the democratic flow of knowledge. Heather Joseph , executive director of the Scholarly Pu...

In The Secret Life of Data , authors Aram Sinnreich and Jesse Gilbert explore how the information we generate every day—email addresses, phone numbers, browsing habits, even biometric data—circulates through vast digital systems that shape our lives in ways we rarely see. Their book examines the hidden infrastructures of data collection, surveillance, and algorithmic decision-making, revealing how...

In The Apple II Age , historian Laine Nooney tells the story of the computer that helped launch Apple, and reshape personal computing. Introduced in 1977, the Apple II became a cultural phenomenon not just because of its hardware, but because of the vibrant software ecosystem that grew around it, from classroom staples like The Print Shop to early games and creative tools that defined a generation...

In Searches: Selfhood in the Digital Age , journalist Vauhini Vara explores how the technologies we use to understand the world—search engines, social platforms, and now AI systems—are also reshaping how we understand ourselves. Drawing from her own experience using chatbots to write about her sister’s death, Vara reflects on what happens when our most human questions, memories, and emotions are f...

For more than three decades, Cindy Cohn , the executive director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has been at the center of the fight to protect privacy, free expression, and innovation online—taking on the NSA’s mass surveillance programs, defending encryption, and pushing back against efforts to weaken digital security in the name of safety. In her new book, Privacy's Defender , she r...

Computer scientist Sayash Kapoor joins legal scholar Kevin Frazier to discuss “AI as Normal Technology,” the paper he co-authored with Arvind Narayanan, arguing that artificial intelligence is not an apocalyptic superintelligence or miraculous cure-all, but a powerful, ordinary technology shaped by human institutions and incentives. Kapoor challenges today’s AI hype and panic, urging us to see AI...

Author Edward Wilson-Lee joins Brewster Kahle to uncover the astonishing true story behind The Catalogue of Shipwrecked Books . Wilson-Lee chronicles the adventures of Hernando Colón, who sailed with his father Christopher Columbus before setting out to build a library of everything ever printed—a quest marked by shipwreck, mutiny, and the relentless pursuit of knowledge. Grab your copy of The Cat...

For years, the open access movement has promised a more equitable world for scholarship. But as more of our publishing infrastructure is shaped—or captured—by commercial incentives, a harder question keeps surfacing: if knowledge is openly available but controlled by the same market forces as before, has anything truly changed? In Publishing Beyond the Market , Samuel Moore challenges us to rethin...

While major recording artists are sued for alleged plagiarism and most creators earn pennies for their work, media industry profits continue to soar. Libraries face mounting barriers to providing access to ebooks—often while being sued by the very publishers whose books they buy. In this episode of Future Knowledge, tech and culture writer Glyn Moody discusses his book Walled Culture: How Big Cont...

What do jazz, gene sequences, and the World Wide Web have in common? They all reveal what’s at stake when our cultural commons shrinks. In this episode, James Boyle , author of The Public Domain , joins Molly Shaffer Van Houweling to explore why the public domain is essential for creativity, innovation, and a healthy information ecosystem. From surprising case studies to the “range wars” of the di...

For this special holiday episode, we’re celebrating the Internet Archive’s milestone of 1 trillion web pages archived with something a little different: live music created just for the occasion. Join us for conversations with composer Erika Oba , composer Sam Reider , and cellist Kathryn Bates of the Del Sol Quartet , recorded around The Vast Blue We , the concert held at the Internet Archive to h...

What made the early web so thrilling, and how do we reclaim that spirit today? In this special episode, recorded at Georgetown University’s historic Riggs Library, leaders who helped build the internet and those fighting for its future come together to chart a path forward. Featuring Brewster Kahle (Internet Archive), Vint Cerf (Google), Cindy Cohn (EFF), and Jon Stokes (Ars Technica), and moderat...

The internet wasn’t ruined by accident—it was ruined on purpose. In this episode, Cory Doctorow joins us to break down enshittification, his term for the slow, deliberate process that transformed an open, vibrant web into something extractive, frustrating, and increasingly hostile to users. Doctorow explains how platform lock-in, predatory business models, and concentrated corporate power hollowed...

In this conversation, Michael Menna and Anjali Vats unpack how copyright law really works for musicians outside the mainstream. While stars like Taylor Swift make headlines for reclaiming their masters, countless “fringe musicians” navigate a system that often privileges profit over creativity. Together, Menna and Vats examine the gap between copyright’s ideals and its realities—exploring how powe...

Sir Tim Berners-Lee , inventor of the World Wide Web, and Brewster Kahle , founder of the Internet Archive, chat with Lauren Goode of Wired about the rise of the web, its continuing and explosive impact on society, and the importance of preserving the web for our cultural history. This conversation was hosted at The Commonwealth Club of California in San Francisco on 10/9/2025. Check out all of th...

In 1996, the web was still young—a chaotic, creative frontier built one page at a time. That same year, the Internet Archive set out to preserve it all. Nearly three decades later, that audacious goal has reached a generational milestone: 1 trillion web pages preserved. Co-hosts Chris Freeland (Internet Archive) and Dave Hansen (Authors Alliance) talk with Mark Graham , director of the Wayback Mac...

Author Trevor Owens joins media scholar Shannon Mattern to discuss his book, After Disruption: A Future for Cultural Memory . Together, they explore how libraries, archives, and museums can reclaim their role in shaping a just and sustainable digital present. Owens argues that cultural memory institutions—long “disrupted” by tech-sector ideologies—must chart their own course forward by centering v...

How does copyright shape the music we love—and influence how it's made, distributed, and reimagined? In this episode, Jennifer Jenkins , author of Music Copyright, Creativity, and Culture , is joined by legal scholar James Boyle for a conversation about how copyright law influences everything in our modern world from sampling and streaming to remix culture, and what that means for creators. Grab y...