Latanya Sweeney on AI, trust, and privacy

How does the rise of AI impact our sense of what’s true? How can humans maintain a degree of individual privacy and unlock the benefits of AI while mitigating potential harms? In this episode, Reid and Aria sit down with data privacy pioneer Latanya Sweeney, Professor of Government and Technology at Harvard; former Chief Technology Officer at the U.S. Federal Trade Commission; and founder of Harvard’s Public Interest Tech Lab and Data Privacy Lab. They discuss the future of privacy protection, technocracy vs. democracy, teaching in the age of AI, governance, content moderation, and more. 

For more info on the podcast and transcripts of all the episodes, visit https://www.possible.fm/podcast/  

Topics:

0:55 - Episode introduction

3:05 - Lessons from Latanya's grandparents

4:30 - Latanya's early days at MIT

5:38 - Re-identification and Governor William Weld example

10:50 - Historical arc of AI

12:24 - The Third Industrial Revolution

15:11 - Technocracy vs. democracy 

18:38 - Making technological literacy a federal priority

21:03 - Divisiveness in AI 

26:20 - Exploring humanity's "cultural dream" of AI

27:17 - Midroll ad break

27:49 - What will it take to build trust in AI at scale?

31:11 - Inflection's Pi lists key elements for a tech-conscious social contract

32:04 - Latanya responds to Pi and talks LLM truth-telling

34:20 - The best of public interest technology

37:02 - Improving content moderation

43:24 - Democratizing public interest technology

44:24 - Feedback and improvements for LinkedIn

47:53 - What does AI mean for education?

49:35 - Insights from Latanya's Harvard students

51:08 - Rapid-fire questions

Possible is an award-winning podcast that sketches out the brightest version of the future—and what it will take to get there. Most of all, it asks: what if, in the future, everything breaks humanity's way? Tune in for grounded and speculative takes on how technology—and, in particular, AI—is inspiring change and transforming the future. Hosted by Reid Hoffman and Aria Finger, each episode features an interview with an ambitious builder or deep thinker on a topic, from art to geopolitics and from healthcare to education. These conversations also showcase another kind of guest: AI. Whether it's Inflection’s Pi, OpenAI’s ChatGPT or other AI tools, each episode will use AI to enhance and advance our discussion about what humanity could possibly get right if we leverage technology—and our collective effort—effectively.