The Sunday Show Tech Policy Press

The guests in this episode are authors of a new study titled Political Machines: Understanding the Role of AI in the US 2024 Elections and Beyond. The study is based on interviews with a variety of individuals who are currently grappling with how generative AI tools and systems will change the way the work.
In a series of field interviews, the authors spoke with three vendors of political generative AI tools, a political candidate, a legal expert, a technology expert, an extremism expert, a digital organizer, a trust and safety industry professional, four Republican campaign consultants, and eight Democratic campaign consultants. Joining Justin Hendrix to discuss the results are:
Dean Jackson, the principal at Public Circle LLC and a reporting fellow with Tech Policy Press;Zelly Martin, a PhD candidate at the University of Texas at Austin and a senior research fellow at the Propaganda Research Lab at the Center for Media Engagement; and Inga Trauthig, head of research at the Propaganda Research Lab at the Center for Media Engagement at the University of Texas at Austin.

This episode focuses on the role of shareholder activism in pursuing transparency and accountability from tech firms. In a week where board resolutions are up for a vote at Meta and Alphabet related to each company's development and deployment of artificial intelligence, Justin Hendrix spoke to five individuals working at the intersection of sustainable investing in tech accountability:
Michael Connor, Executive Director of Open MICJessica Dheere, Advocacy Director at Open MICNatasha Lamb, Chief Investment Officer at Arjuna CapitalJonas Kron, Chief Advocacy Officer at Trillium Asset ManagementChristina O'Connell, Senior Manager for Shareholder Engagement and Investments at Ekō

As we documented in Tech Policy Press, when the US Senate AI working group released its roadmap on policy on May 17th, many outside organizations were underwhelmed at best, and some were fiercely critical of the closed door process that produced it. In the days after the report was announced, a group of nonprofit and academic organizations put out what they call a "shadow report" to the US Senate AI policy roadmap. The shadow report is intended as a complement or counterpoint to the Senate working group's product. It collects a bibliography of research and proposals from civil society and academia and addresses several issues the Senators largely passed over. To learn more, Justin Hendrix spoke to some of the report's authors, including:
Sarah West, co-executive director of the AI Now InstituteNasser Eledroos, policy lead on technology at Color of ChangeParamita Shah, executive director of Just Futures LawCynthia Conti-Cook, director of research and policy at the Surveillance Resistance Lab

A conversation with Marwa Fatafta, who serves as policy and advocacy director for the nonprofit Access now, which has worked on digital civil rights, connectivity and censorship issues for the past 15 years. Along with other groups, Access Now has engaged Meta in recent months over what it says is the “systematic censorship of Palestinian voices” amidst the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza. 

One tech journalist whose byline always draws me in is Chris Stokel-Walker. He writes for multiple publications including The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Economist, Wired, Fast Company, and New Scientist. Now, he’s got a new book out: How AI Ate the World: A Brief History of Artificial Intelligence - And Its Long Future. Last week, I had the chance to speak with him about it, and about how he covers technology and tech policy generally.

On Wednesday, May 15, 2024, a bipartisan US Senate working group led by Majority Leader Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) released a report titled "Driving U.S. Innovation in Artificial Intelligence: A Roadmap for Artificial Intelligence Policy in the United States Senate." Just hours after the report was released, Justin Hendrix spoke to two civil rights advocates who are working on AI policy about the good and the bad of the Senate report, and more broadly about how to set AI policy priorities that ensure a brighter future for all:
Alejandra Montoya-Boyer, Senior Director at the Center for Civil Rights & Tech at the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human RightsClaudia Ruiz, Senior Civil Rights Policy Analyst at UnidosUS