Media, Tech & Disinformation

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.