Future Knowledge

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 filtered through systems designed to analyze and monetize them. Humanities scholar Luca Messarra speaks with Vara about the promises and limits of machine understanding.Grab your copy of Searches: Selfhood in the Digital Age: https://www.vauhinivara.com/searchesThis conversation was recorded on 2/26/2026. Watch the full video recording at: https://archive.org/details/searches-book-talk Check out all of the Future Knowledge episodes at https://archive.org/details/future-knowledge

Cindy Cohn, executive director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation and longtime civil liberties lawyer, reflects on landmark crypto and surveillance fights. She recounts early encryption litigation, AT&T revelations, and how the Patriot Act reshaped surveillance. The conversation highlights corporate and government roles in privacy threats and practical ways people can defend digital rights.

Sayash Kapoor, a computer scientist and Princeton PhD candidate who co-authored AI as Normal Technology and AI Snake Oil, argues AI is ordinary infrastructure, not magic. He contrasts generative vs predictive systems. He explains deployment bottlenecks, institutional barriers, policy priorities, and risks like biosecurity while urging clearer governance and realistic expectations.

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 Catalogue Of Shipwrecked Books from The Booksmith: https://www.booksmith.com/book/9781982111403 This conversation was recorded on 6/28/2022. Watch the full video recording at: https://archive.org/details/book-talk-the-catalogue-of-shipwrecked-booksCheck out all of the Future Knowledge episodes at https://archive.org/details/future-knowledge

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 rethink open access from the ground up. Guiding our conversation is Heather Joseph, the executive director of SPARC.Grab your copy of Publishing Beyond the Market: https://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/105971This conversation was recorded on 12/04/2025. Watch the full video recording at: https://archive.org/details/publishing-beyond-the-market Check out all of the Future Knowledge episodes at https://archive.org/details/future-knowledge

Join tech and culture writer Glyn Moody, author of 'Walled Culture,' and journalist Maria Bustillos as they delve into the clash between copyright laws and the digital age. Moody argues that outdated scarcity models restrict access to creativity, benefitting large corporations at the expense of creators. The discussion touches on controlled digital lending, the potential of direct relationships through NFTs and Patreon, and the absurdity of publisher restrictions that limit libraries' access to ebooks. Explore a future where sustainable publishing empowers creators!

James Boyle, a law professor and public domain advocate, and Molly Shaffer Van Houweling, a leading copyright scholar, delve into the crucial role of the public domain in fostering creativity. They discuss surprising examples like jazz and gene sequences, illustrating how intellectual property expansion stifles culture. The conversation touches on the risks posed by AI, the consequences of reduced public funding for science, and the need for a movement to protect shared knowledge. Their insights highlight why clarity around public domain is essential for artists and innovators.

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 honor our shared digital memory. Two new commissions premiered that night: Oba’s “Blue Lights” and Reider’s “Quartet for a Trillion,” both written to capture the wonder and scale of the open web—and brought to life by Del Sol Quartet. Oba later reconfigured “Blue Lights” for a solo performance during The Web We’ve Built celebration.In this episode, you’ll hear brief conversations with the artists about their creative process, followed by recordings from the performance itself. A short, reflective holiday release that celebrates collaboration, imagination, and what we can build together.Check out all of the Future Knowledge episodes at https://archive.org/details/future-knowledge

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 moderated by Luke Hogg of the Foundation for American Innovation, this conversation looks back at the web’s origins to imagine what a truly open, innovative, and empowering internet could still become.This conversation was recorded on 10/27/2025. Watch the full video recording at: https://archive.org/details/wayback-to-the-future-celebrating-the-open-webCheck out all of the Future Knowledge episodes at https://archive.org/details/future-knowledge 

Cory Doctorow, a science fiction author and digital rights activist, discusses his concept of 'enshittification,' the deliberate degradation of the internet. He outlines how platforms attract users but eventually prioritize profit over quality, leading to a hostile online environment. Doctorow highlights the role of corporate consolidation and antitrust failures in this decline. He advocates for stricter regulations, tech worker unions, and interoperability to reclaim a user-centered internet. His insights reveal a path for restoring digital spaces that prioritize people.