The Tech Policy Press Podcast

Katrina Manson, reporter and author of Project Maven, explores the rise of AI in military operations. She traces the program’s origins, key figures like Drew Cukor, and early field tests. Conversations cover vendor battles, drone autonomy, human roles in lethal decisions, and legal fights over red lines for AI use in warfare.

Kate Klonick, law professor and Lawfare senior editor, unpacks how U.S. diplomacy now treats Elon Musk’s X as a preferred tool. She highlights the surprising official platform endorsement, coordination with military psyops, and how privatization shifted platform incentives. The conversation explores consequences for users, global influence, and regulatory pushback.

Olivier Sylvain, a Fordham Law professor and author on tech regulation, explores how platforms used free-speech rhetoric to dodge responsibility. He discusses court verdicts holding Big Tech accountable, how Section 230 and algorithms shield harmful design, and legal paths like design liability, transparency, and data rules to reclaim online spaces.

Marché Arends, Cape Town investigative journalist on big tech and labor; Andreu Belsunces Gonçalves, sociologist of technology exploring tech, economy, and future imaginaries; Jascha Bareis, political scientist studying AI and political communication. They map Hype Studies, who crafts and amplifies tech hype, its ties to finance and the military, journalism’s role, and the human and ecological costs of hyped AI.

Jessica Silbey, law professor and associate dean studying institutional impacts of AI. Woodrow Hartzog, law and technology scholar focused on AI design and governance. They describe how AI erodes institutional expertise, accountability, and civic functions. They trace risks to law, journalism, military chains of command, and argue for local, sectoral responses and institutional repair.

Workers describe organizing inside a major tech firm to oppose government surveillance contracts. They explain how petitions and past campaigns shaped tactics and demands. Conversations cover risks of speaking up, leadership responses, and debates over staying to reform versus leaving. The discussion highlights labor power, ethical boundaries in product work, and calls for collective action.

Anya Schiffrin, Columbia SIPA tech policy co-director who led regional consultations, and Alice Marwick, Data & Society research director studying online misinformation. They map industrialized deepfake financial fraud, trace the scam supply chain and platform ad roles. They discuss telecom and banking interventions, cross-border organized crime challenges, and policy ideas like watermarking and advertiser KYC.

Cindy Cohn, executive director emerita of the Electronic Frontier Foundation and longtime digital rights lawyer, reflects on three decades defending privacy and encryption. She recounts landmark legal fights from the Bernstein case to NSA revelations. Conversations cover surveillance’s threat to democracy, metadata power, building pro-democracy movements, and how to sustain activism without burning out.

Albert Fox Cahn, founder of STOP and civil rights advocate focused on surveillance and tech policy. Evan Selinger, philosophy professor and co-author exploring technology ethics and incremental innovation. They critique move-fast culture. They defend steady upgrades over risky disruption. They discuss AI hype, surveillance pitfalls like Ring, cybersecurity as incremental defense, and a practical upgrader checklist.

Amos Toh, senior counsel at the Brennan Center focused on national security law, and Kat Duffy, CFR senior fellow on geopolitics and AI policy, unpack the Anthropic-Pentagon standoff. They discuss Anthropic's red lines, how the dispute escalated into a supply-chain designation, risks to procurement and alliances, and broader implications for oversight, surveillance pathways, and AI adoption versus guardrails.