The Tech Policy Press Podcast

This episode considers whether today’s massive AI investment boom reflects real economic fundamentals or an unsustainable bubble, and how a potential crash could reshape AI policy, public sentiment, and narratives about the future that are embraced and advanced not only by Silicon Valley billionaires, but also by politicians and governments.  Justin Hendrix is joined by: Ryan Cummings , chief...

This episode was recorded in Barcelona at this year’s Mozilla Festival. One session at the festival focused on how to get better access to data for independent researchers to study technology platforms and products and their effects on society. It coincided with the launch of the Knight-Georgetown Institute’s report, “ Better Access: Data for the Common Good ,” the product of a year-long effort to...

For her special series of podcasts, Through to Thriving , Tech Policy Press fellow Anika Collier Navaroli spoke to artist Mimi Ọnụọha , whose work "questions and exposes the contradictory logics of technological progress." The discussion ranged across changing trends in nomenclature of data and artificial intelligence, the role of art in bearing witness to authoritarianism, the interventions and p...

Ryan Calo is a professor at the University of Washington School of Law with a joint appointment at the Information School and an adjunct appointment at the Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science and Engineering. He is a founding co-director of the UW Tech Policy Lab and a co-founder of the UW Center for an Informed Public . In his new book, Law and Technology: A Methodical Approach , published b...

Instagram has spent years making promises about how it intends to protect minors on its platform. To explore its past shortcomings—and the questions lawmakers and regulators should be asking—I spoke with two of the authors of a new report that offers a comprehensive assessment of Instagram’s record on protecting teens: Laura Edelson , an assistant professor of computer science at Northeastern Univ...

Mallory Knodel ,  executive director of the Social Web Foundation and founder of a weekly newsletter called the Internet Exchange, and Burcu Kilic , a senior fellow at Canada’s Center for International Governance Innovation, or CIGI, are the authors of a recent post on the Internet Exchange titled “Big Tech Redefined the Open Internet to Serve Its Own Interests,” which explores how the idea of the...

It’s been three years since Europe’s Digital Services Act (DSA) came into effect, a sweeping set of rules meant to hold online platforms accountable for how they moderate content and protect users. One component of the law allows users to challenge online platform content moderation decisions through independent, certified bodies rather than judicial proceedings. Under Article 21 of the...

Drawn from the biblical story in the book of Genesis, “Babel” has come to stand for the challenge of communication across linguistic, cultural, and ideological divides—the confusion and fragmentation that arise when we no longer share a common tongue or understanding. Today’s guest John Wihbey ,  an associate professor of media Innovation at Northeastern University and the author of a new book tit...

Across the United States, dozens of state governments have attempted to establish their own efficiency initiatives, some molded in the image of the federal Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). A common theme across many of these initiatives is the "stated goal of identifying and eliminating inefficiencies in state government using artificial intelligence (AI)" and promoting "expanded access...

With two new bills headed to the desk of Governor Governor Gavin Newsom (D), California could soon pass the most significant guardrails for AI companions in the nation, sparking a lobbying brawl between consumer advocates and tech industry groups. In a recent report for Tech Policy Press,  associate editor Cristiano Lima-Strong detailed how groups are pouring tens if not hundreds of thousands...

​From September 21–28, New York City will host Climate Week. Leaders from business, politics, academia, and civil society will gather to share ideas and develop strategies to address the climate crisis. ​The tech industry intersects with climate concerns in a number of ways, not least of which is through its own growing demand for natural resources and energy, particularly to power data centers. W...

Charlie Kirk , a conservative activist and co-founder of Turning Point USA, died Wednesday after he was shot at an event at Utah Valley University. Kirk’s assassination was instantly broadcast to the world from multiple perspectives on social media platforms including TikTok, Instagram, YouTube and X. But in the hours and days that have followed, the video and various derivative ver...

Demand for computing power is fueling a massive surge in investment in data centers worldwide. McKinsey estimates spending will hit $6.7 trillion by 2030, with more than $1 trillion expected in the U.S. alone over the next five years. As this boom accelerates, public scrutiny is intensifying. Communities across the country are raising questions about environmental impacts, energy demands, and the...

For the latest episode in her series of podcast discussions , Through to Thriving , Tech Policy Press fellow Anika Collier Navaroli spoke to Vaishnavi J , founder and principal of Vyanams Strategies (VYS), a trust and safety advisory firm focusing on youth safety, and a former safety leader at Meta, Twitter, and Google. Anika and Vaishnavi discussed a range of issues on the theme of how to center...

Today’s guest is Petter Törnberg , who with Justus Uitermark is one of the authors of a new book, titled Seeing Like a Platform: An Inquiry into the Condition of Digital Modernity , that sets out to address the “entanglement of epistemology, technology, and politics in digital modernity,” and what studying that entanglement can tell us about the workings of power. The book is part of a part of a s...

Last year, Colorado signed a first-of-its-kind artificial intelligence measure into law. The Colorado AI Act would require developers of high-risk AI systems to take reasonable steps to prevent harms to consumers, such as algorithmic discrimination, including by conducting impact assessments on their tools. But last week, the state kicked off a special session where lawmakers held frenzied negotia...

On this podcast, we’ve come back again and again to questions around mis- and disinformation, propaganda, rumors, and the role that digital platforms play in anti-democratic phenomena. In a new book published this summer by Oxford University Press called Connective Action and the Rise of the Far-Right: Platforms, Politics, and the Crisis of Democracy , a group of scholars from varied research trad...

In the latest installment in her series of podcasts called Through to Thriving, Tech Policy Press fellow Anika Collier Navoroli speaks with Dr. Jasmine McNealy , an attorney, critical public interest technologist, and professor in the Department of Media Production, Management, and Technology at the University of Florida;, and Naomi Nix , a staff writer for The Washington Post, where she reports o...

Today’s guest, journalist Rahul Bhatia , has written a book that is part journalistic account, part history, and part memoir titled The New India: The Unmaking of the World's Largest Democracy . Reviewing the book in The Guardian , Salil Tripathi writes that “Bhatia’s remarkable book is an absorbing account of India’s transformation from the world’s largest democracy to something more like th...

On Thursday, Reuters tech reporter Jeff Horwitz , who broke the story of the Facebook Papers back in 2021 when he was at the Wall Street Journal , published two pieces, both detailing new revelations about Meta’s approach to AI chatbots. In a Reuters special report, Horwitz tells the story of a man with a cognitive impairment who died while attempting to travel to meet a chatbot character he...

Daniel J. Solove is the Eugene L. and Barbara A. Bernard Professor of Intellectual Property and Technology Law at the George Washington University Law School. The project of his latest book, On Privacy and Technology , is to synthesize twenty five years of thinking about privacy into a “succinct and accessible” volume and to help the reader understand “the relationship between law, technology...

Through To Thriving is a a special series of podcast episodes hosted by Tech Policy Press fellow Anika Collier Navaroli . With her guests, Anika is imagining futures beyond our current moment. For this episode, she spoke with Nora Benavidez , senior counsel and director of digital justice and civil rights at the nonprofit Free Press. Anika and Nora discussed the past and present state of plat...

On Saturday, July 26, three days after the Trump administration published its  AI action plan , China’s foreign ministry released that country’s action plan for global AI governance . As the US pursues “global dominance,” China is communicating a different posture. What should we know about China’s plan , and how does it contrast with the US plan? What's at stake in the competition...

Yesterday, United States President Donald Trump took to the stage at the "Winning the AI Race Summit" to promote the administration's AI Action Plan . Shortly after it was published, Tech Policy Press editor Justin Hendrix sat down with Sarah Myers West , the co-director of the AI Now Institute; Maia Woluchem , the program director of the Trustworthy Infrastructures team at Data and Society; and R...

This weekend, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) turns 35. Signed into law on July 26, 1990, the law provides broad anti-discrimination protections for people with disabilities in the US, and has impacted how people with disabilities interact with various technologies. To discuss how the law has aged and what the fight for equity and inclusion looks like going forward, Tech Policy Press fel...