Carnegie Council Podcasts

How should we think about privacy and government surveillance during the COVID-19 pandemic? Johns Hopkins' Jeffrey Kahn and ETH Zurich's Effy Vayena discuss health data and government surveillance, focusing on contract tracing apps in Europe and immunity certificates in the United States, with Carnegie Council President Joel Rosenthal in this virtual webinar.

As U.S. states and European nations contemplate how to end the COVID-19 quarantine, Senior Fellow Arthur Holland Michel discusses all aspects of surveillance and ethics. From ongoing issues in Baltimore to technologies focused on location data to the future of privacy and government regulation in a post-pandemic world, Michel and host Alex Woodson look at the current "Cambrian explosion" in survei...

If global interconnections begin to fray in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, what happens to the ethical underpinnings of international relations? Senior Fellow Nikolas Gvosdev and Carnegie Council President Joel Rosenthal discuss this important question and much more as solidarity begins to weaken among European Union and NATO states.

In this wide-ranging talk, Future of Privacy Forum's Brenda Leong discusses the commercial uses of facial recognition technology, concerns about privacy and bias, how it's being utilized during the COVID-19 pandemic, and some tough questions about government surveillance. What's the future of facial recognition? How can we use this technology ethically? 

Jameson Spivack, policy associate at Georgetown Law's Center on Privacy and Technology, discusses some of the most pressing policy issues when it comes to facial recognition technology in the United States and the ongoing pandemic. Why is Maryland's system so invasive? What are other states and cities doing? And, when it comes to surveillance and COVID-19, where's the line between privacy and secu...

Despite being close to the initial epicenter of the virus, Taiwan was able to contain its COVID-19 outbreak earlier in 2020. Audrey Tang, Taiwan's digital minister, explains how her office helped in this effort by fighting disinformation with some innovative ideas. What can countries like the U.S. or Italy learn from Taiwan in the battle against this pandemic?

With the COVID-19 pandemic disrupting all aspects of daily life around the world, what will be the effect on international relations? Will it increase cooperation among nations, or will it lead to more conflict and competition? Senior Fellow Nikolas Gvosdev and host Alex Woodson discuss these scenarios and also touch on how the virus has affected the Democratic primary, in which Joe Biden now has...

On February 29, the United States and the Taliban reached an agreement that could potentially end the longest-running war in American history. Jonathan Cristol, author of "The United States and the Taliban before and after 9/11," discusses the specifics of the deal, the role of the Afghan government, women's rights, and how this all fits into the worldview of the Trump administration.

Senior Fellow Nikolas Gvosdev looks at the foreign policy discussions after Super Tuesday, with only Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders left with realistic chances at the Democratic nomination. When it comes to the U.S. role in the world, what are the big differences between these two candidates? Is Biden's "restorationist" agenda risky? And looking ahead to a post-Trump future, how have relationships c...

Are there norms when it comes to cybersecurity? How should governments regulate this emerging domain? What's the role of the private sector? SIPA's Jason Healey discusses all this and more with cybersecurity analyst Alicia Fawcett. Plus, he explains some of the risks associated with cyberattacks and why, so far, they haven't escalated into anything "kinetic."

UC Berkley's Professor Stuart J. Russell discusses the near- and far-future of artificial intelligence, including self-driving cars, killer robots, governance, and why he's worried that AI might destroy the world. How can scientists reconfigure AI systems so that humans will always be in control? How can we govern this emerging technology across borders? What can be done if autonomous weapons are...

With record-breaking winter warmth in Europe, catastrophic fires in Australia, and deadly flooding in Indonesia, we are deep into a climate crisis. In this wide-ranging talk, Janos Paztor, executive director of the Carnegie Climate Governance Initiative (C2G), talks about his organization's work on the governance of emerging technologies that intentionally seek to change the Earth's climate system...

Peter Asaro, co-founder of the International Committee for Robot Arms Control, has a simple solution for stopping the future proliferation of killer robots, or lethal autonomous weapons: "Ban them." What are the ethical and logistical risks of this technology? How would it change the nature of warfare? And with the U.S. and other nations currently developing killer robots, what is the state of gov...

With the (incomplete) results of the Iowa Caucus putting the spotlight on Pete Buttigieg and Bernie Sanders, what do we know about their foreign policy platforms? How do they differentiate themselves from Joe Biden? Senior Fellow Nikolas Gvosdev shares his thoughts and touches on voters' possible perception of Sanders as a "socialist" and how climate change could become an issue in this election.

How much do morals matter for U.S. presidents when it comes to international affairs? What are the ethics of "America First" or the 2003 invasion of Iraq? Joseph Nye, former dean of the Harvard Kennedy School, works through each presidency from FDR to Trump and scores their foreign policy on three ethical dimensions of their intentions, the means they used, and the consequences of their decisions.

At the end of World War I, colonial powers carved up the Ottoman Empire and the reverberations are still being felt today. Historian Ted Widmer discusses the circumstances that led to this fateful episode and why Woodrow Wilson wasn't able to extend his principle of "self-determination" to the Middle East. How should we think about the Trump-Netanyahu peace plan in the context of what happened in...

Do soldiers fighting for a "just cause" have more rights than soldiers fighting on the other side? In this interview following up on an "Ethics & International Affairs" article, Stanford's Professor Scott D. Sagan discusses the results of a study he conducted with Dartmouth's Professor Benjamin A. Valentino on how Americans think about this profound question.

How can investigators utilize new technology like facial recognition software while respecting the rights of suspects and the general public? What are the consequences of government overreaction to terrorist threats? Tom Parker, author of "Avoiding the Terrorist Trap," discusses privacy, surveillance, and more in the context of counterterrorism.

In the fourth podcast in Carnegie Council's gene editing podcast series, Dalhousie University's Professor Françoise Baylis, author of "Altered Inheritance," explains what "slow science" and "broad societal consensus" mean when it comes to this technology. She also details why public empowerment is vital for ethical gene editing and wonders if some of these procedures will stay in the realm of scie...

What does "good ethics" means when it comes to gene editing? What types of conversations should we be having about this technology? Julian Savulescu, director of the Oxford Uehiro Centre for Practical Ethics, shares his thoughts on these topics and more, including moral and human enhancement, and why he called Dr. He Jiankui's experiment "monstrous."

How can algorithms be made more "ethical"? How can we design AI to protect against racial and gender biases when it comes to loan applications or policing? UPenn's Professor Michael Kearns, co-author of "The Ethical Algorithm," and Geoff Shaefer, who works on AI issues at Booz Allen Hamilton, discuss these issues and much more.

Jeffrey Kahn, director of the Johns Hopkins Berman Institute for Bioethics, discusses the many governance issues connected to gene editing. Plus, he gives a first-hand account of an historic conference in Hong Kong last year in which Dr. He Jiankui shared his research on the birth of the world's first germline genetically engineered babies. What's the future of the governance of this emerging tech...

In the first in a series of podcasts on gene editing, Columbia's Dr. Robert Klitzman provides an overview of the technology, ethical and governance issues, and where it could all go in the near future. Plus he explains why the birth of genetically engineered twins in China last year was a "seismic" event. How could gene editing lead to more inequality? What could be some of unintended consequences...

In 1919, a young Army officer named Dwight Eisenhower, along with a "Mad Max"-style military convoy, set out on a cross-country road trip to examine the nascent state of America's roads. Penn State Altoona's Professor Brian C. Black explains how this trip influenced Eisenhower's decisions decades later, both as general and president, and laid the groundwork for the rise of petroleum-based engines...

How can artificial intelligence improve food security, medicine, and infrastructure in Arctic communities? What are some logistical, ethical, and governance challenges? Western Michigan's Professor Fritz Allhoff details the future of technology in this extreme environment, which is being made more accessible because of climate change. Plus he shares his thoughts on some open philosophical question...