Protecting Privacy and Dissent in an Age of Authoritarianism and AI

Helen Nissenbaum, a philosopher, is a professor at Cornell Tech and in the Information Science Department at Cornell University. She is director of the Digital Life Initiative at Cornell Tech, which was launched in 2017 to explore societal perspectives surrounding the development and application of digital technology. Her work on contextual privacy, trust, accountability, security, and values in technology design led her to work with collaborators on projects such as TrackMeNot, a tool to mask a user's real search history by sending search engines a cloud of ‘ghost’ queries, and AdNauseam, a browser extension that obfuscates a user’s browsing data to protect from tracking by advertising networks. Building on such projects, in 2015, she coauthored a book with Finn Brunton called Obfuscation: A User’s Guide for Privacy and Protest. The book detailed ideas on mitigating and defeating digital surveillance. With concerns about surveillance surging in a time of rising authoritarianism and the advent of powerful artificial intelligence technologies, Justin Hendrix reached out to Professor Nissenbaum to find out what she’s thinking in this moment, and how her ideas can be applied to present day phenomena.

At Tech Policy Press we’ve been tracking the emerging application of generative AI systems in content moderation. Recently, the European Center for Not-for-Profit Law (ECNL) released a comprehensive report titled Algorithmic Gatekeepers: The Human Rights Impacts of LLM Content Moderation, which looks at the opportunities and challenges of using generative AI in content moderation systems at scale. Justin Hendrix spoke to its primary author, ECNL senior legal manager Marlena Wisniak.

If you’ve been reading Tech Policy Press closely over the last three weeks, you may have come across one or more posts from collaboration with Data & Society called “Ideologies of Control: A Series on Tech Power and Democratic Crisis.” The articles in the series examine how powerful tech billionaires and authoritarian leaders and thinkers are leveraging AI and digital infrastructure to advance anti-democratic agendas, consolidate control, and reshape society in ways that threaten privacy, labor rights, environmental sustainability, and democratic governance. For this episode, Justin Hendrix spoke to four of the authors who made contributions to the series, including:Jacob Metcalf,  program director of the AI On the Ground Initiative at Data & Society;Tamara Kneese, program director of the Climate, Technology and Justice program at Data & Society;Reem Suleiman,  outgoing US advocacy lead at the Mozilla Foundation and  member of the city of Oakland's Privacy Advisory Commission; and Kevin De Liban, founder of TechTonic Justice.

For a special series of episodes dubbed Through to Thriving that will air throughout the year, Tech Policy Press fellow Anika Collier Navaroli is hosting discussions intended to help us imagine possible futures—for tech and tech policy, for democracy, and society—beyond the moment we are in.The third episode in the series features her conversation with Dr. Timnit Gebru, the founder and executive director of the Distributed Artificial Intelligence Research Institute. Last year, Dr. Gebru wrote an New York Times opinion that asked, “Who Is Tech Really For?” In the piece, she also asked, “what would an internet that served my elders look like?” This year, DAIR has continued to ask these questions by hosting an event and a blog called Possible Futures that imagines “what the world can look like when we design and deploy technology that centers the needs of our communities. In one of these pieces, Dr. Gebru, along with her colleagues Asmelash Teka Hadgu and Dr. Alex Hanna describe “An Internet for Our Elders.”

Concerns about AI chatbots delivering harmful, even profoundly dangerous advice or instructions to users is growing. There is deep concern over the effects of these interactions on children, and a growing number of stories—and lawsuits—about when things go wrong, particularly for teens. In this conversation, Justin Hendrix is joined by three legal experts who are thinking deeply about how to address questions related to chatbots, and about the need for substantially more research on human-AI interaction: Clare Huntington, Barbara Aronstein Black Professor of Law at Columbia Law School;Meetali Jain, founder and director of the Tech Justice Law Project; and Robert Mahari, associate director of Stanford's CodeX Center.

In Europe, the digital regulatory landscape is in flux. Over the past few years, the EU has positioned itself as a global leader in tech regulation, rolling out landmark laws like the AI Act. But now, as the much-anticipated AI Act approaches implementation, the path forward is looking anything but smooth. Reports suggest the European Commission is considering a delay to the AI Act’s rollout due to mounting pressure from industry, difficulties in finalizing technical standards, and geopolitical tensions—including pushback from the US government. At the same time, a broader movement for Europe to reduce its dependence on Amercian tech is gaining momentum: What does this push for digital sovereignty actually mean? To help us unpack all of this, Tech Policy Press associate editor Ramsha Jahangir spoke to Kai Zenner, Head of Office and Digital Policy Advisor to German MEP Axel Voss, and one of the more influential voices shaping the future of EU digital policy.

In this episode, Justin Hendrix speaks with Nerima Wako-Ojiwa, director of Siasa Place, and Odanga Madung, a tech and society researcher and journalist, about the intersection of technology, labor rights, and political power in Kenya and across Africa. The conversation explores the ongoing struggles of content moderators and AI data annotators, who face exploitative working conditions while performing essential labor for major tech companies; the failure of platforms fail to address harmful biases and disinformation that particularly affect African contexts; the ways in which governments increasingly use platform failures as justification for internet censorship and surveillance; and the promise of youth and labor movements that point to a more just and democratic future.

For a special series of episodes dubbed Through to Thriving that will air throughout the year, Tech Policy Press fellow Anika Collier Navaroli is hosting discussions intended to help us imagine possible futures—for tech and tech policy, for democracy, and society—beyond the moment we are in. The second episode in the series features her conversation with Dr. Desmond Upton Patton, who has long studied the intersection of technology and social issues and advised companies developing technologies and policies for social media and AI. Dr. Patton is the Brian and Randi Schwartz University Professor and Penn Integrates Knowledge University Professor at the University of Pennsylvania, and he serves on the board of Tech Policy Press.Recently, Dr. Patton has been teaching a class within Annenberg and the School of Social Policy & Practice called "Journey to Joy: Designing a Happier Life." In this episode, he discusses his personal and intellectual journey, and what the concept of joy has to do with technology and how we imagine the future.

Canadian political leaders are in a precarious moment. Fresh off the resignation of former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and ascendancy of his successor, new Prime Minister and Liberal Party leader Mark Carney, the nation faces a brewing trade war with the United States and a deteriorating relationship with its president, Donald Trump.In addition to managing those global tensions, Canadian leaders have a long to-do list on tech policy, including figuring out the nation’s approach to artificial intelligence and online harms. How will the new Carney-led government in Canada navigate those issues?Tech Policy Press associate editor Cristiano Lima-Strong spoke to three experts to get a sense:Renee Black is founder of goodbot, where she works on preventing harmful disinformation and bias, and establishing frameworks that protect digital rights.Maroussia Lévesque is a doctoral candidate and lecturer at Harvard Law School, an affiliate at the Berkman Klein Center, and a senior fellow at the Center for International Governance Innovation.Vass Bednar is a public policy entrepreneur working at the intersection of technology and public policy.

Emily M. Bender and Alex Hanna are the authors of a new book that The Guardian calls “refreshingly sarcastic” and Business Insider calls a “funny and irreverent deconstruction of AI.” They are also occasional contributors to Tech Policy Press. Justin Hendrix spoke to them about their new book, The AI Con: How to Fight Big Tech’s Hype and Create the Future We Want, just out from Harper Collins.