We discuss how the interlocking web of public relations, think tanks, and university research funding by private actors and corporations have polluted the information ecosphere. Warping the truth is destroying reality and eroding democracy.

We discuss how AI can both serve the public interest and advance the goals of our democracy, despite the misgivings about the current state of AI.

We discuss how AI can both serve the public interest and advance the goals of our democracy, despite the misgivings about the current state of AI.

We discuss what’s happening in the AI space to augment human life in this moment, and what the potential intersections are with democracy.

We discuss that Americans should prize truth over tribe with Barbara McQuade. A lot of disinformation is hiding behind the First Amendment – using the right to free speech to tell lies. The muddy media and information ecosystem is turning us against our neighbors.

Barbara McQuade is a legal analyst for NBC News and MSNBC, co-host of the podcast #SistersinLaw, and a professor at the University of Michigan Law School. Her first book is Attack From Within: How Disinformation is Sabotaging America. We discuss the dangers of disinformation and how we can defeat it.

Marietje Schaake is International Policy Director at Stanford University Cyber Policy Center, International Policy Fellow at Stanford’s Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence, and also serves on the UN’s A.I. Advisory Body. We take a deep dive into how the digital revolution can still fulfill its promise of a democratic revolution. In other words: make A.I. work for democracy.

Chris Wiggins and Matthew L. Jones are co-authors of How Data Happened: A History from the Age of Reason to the Age of Algorithms. Chris is an associate professor of applied mathematics at Columbia University and the New York Times’s chief data scientist and Matt is a professor of history at Columbia. Together, they taught a course called “Data: Past, Present, and Future," and their book is an extension thereof. We discuss the history of how data is made; the relationship between data and truth; and the unstable three-player game between corporate, state, and people power.

Craig Aaron is the Co-CEO of Free Press and Free Press Action. We discuss the civic information bill in New Jersey and the promise of centering civic information in the media.

Orly Lobel is the Warren Distinguished Professor of Law and the Director of the Center for Employment and Labor Law. Her latest book is The Equality Machine: Harnessing Digital Technology for a Brighter, More Inclusive Future. We discuss reframing our public discourse around technology in order to proactively use it as a tool for equality.

Richard Hasen is a nationally recognized expert in election law and campaign finance regulation, and his new book is Cheap Speech: How Disinformation Poisons Our Politics and How to Cure It. We discuss the long-term dangers of cheap speech, which includes misinformation and disinformation, and ways to improve our information sphere in keeping with the First Amendment.