The Tech Policy Press Podcast

Is the future something to be calculated and controlled, or something we shape together through democratic struggle? How should we read the convergence of Silicon Valley's "Dark Enlightenment" thinkers with a resurgent authoritarian right, and is Europe truly reckoning with what has shifted in the United States? What is driving the continent's anti-regulatory mood? What counts as "evidence" sufficient to legislate a fast-moving technology, and at what point does the demand for proof become a license for the catastrophe to arrive first?
Justin Hendrix addressed these questions and more with scholar and former European Commission official Paul Nemitz, who is one of the authors of a new book titled The Open Future and its Enemies: How We Can Protect Free Society from AI Dictatorship. The book argues that three decades of under-regulation have produced the concentrations of wealth and power we now confront, and that the survival of democracy in the digital age will depend on citizens, civil society, and a new generation willing to treat their work as carrying responsibility not just for safety, but for fundamental rights and self-government.

Just days before it was set to begin last week in Lusaka, RightsCon organizer Access Now was forced to announce the annual digital and human rights conference would not proceed after it learned of Chinese pressure on the Zambian government to restrict the participation of delegates from Taiwan. The effective cancellation of the event was a huge blow to Access Now, its local civil society partners in Zambia, and to the global community of rights defenders, some of whom were already traveling when they got the news. To many, it is an ominous signal about the growing challenges to doing pro-democracy and pro-human rights work in an increasingly authoritarian world.
To learn more about what transpired and what’s next, Justin Hendrix spoke to the head of Access Now, Alejandro Mayoral Baños, and the director of RightsCon, Nikki Gladstone, about their experience, why this moment matters, and what's next for the community they convene.

In this episode, Tech Policy Press fellow Chris Mills Rodrigo speaks with Katie Wells, a senior fellow at the AI Now Institute and the author of two reports on the 'gig-ification' of nursing, to dig into how AI is reshaping the profession from the inside out. Rodrigo and Wells examine what's actually being deployed in hospitals: scheduling algorithms, productivity tools, and a fast-growing app-based contingent workforce that is turning bedside care into something closer to gig work. Wells reports that these trends prefigure the broader adoption of AI in healthcare, raising questions not only about the stability of the profession and the quality of patient care, but also about how the degradation of healthcare work affects communities.

With artificial intelligence systems increasingly deployed by companies and governments to hoover up every possible unit of data and to make consequential decisions about people's employment, benefits, credit, education, housing, and health care, the United States still has no baseline federal privacy law. This week, House Republicans put a new bill on the table called the SECURE Data Act.
Today’s guest is Eric Null, director of the Privacy & Data Project at the Center for Democracy & Technology. He says the bill has significant structural weaknesses even as it seeks to preempt stronger state protections that are already in place.

New Mexico Attorney General Raúl Torrez sued Meta in December 2023, alleging the company made false public statements about the safety of its platforms while knowing internally that its products facilitated child sexual exploitation. On March 24, a Santa Fe jury found Meta liable for willful violations of New Mexico’s Unfair Practices Act, awarding $375 million in civil penalties.
The next phase is a bench trial, starting May 4, to decide the state's public nuisance claim and determine remedies. Justin Hendrix spoke to Torrez about the types of reforms the state hopes to secure.