Explain to Shane

Many people rely on their employers to manage cybersecurity at work. Protecting personal devices and accounts, however, is often overlooked and can mean sorting through unfamiliar tools and advice on your own. As cybersecurity threats constantly evolve, how can we equip ourselves and our loved ones to identify data breaches and act quickly? When an email looks real but something is off, what should you do first? And what do you do if you have already been hit by a ransomware attack?To explore the steps to take, Shane is joined by Greg Oslan, chairman and CEO of MERENA Inc. and board treasurer of the National Cybersecurity Center in Colorado Springs. They dive into common occurrences people at any level of digital literacy face such as forgotten accounts, recycled passwords, and the evolution of scams in the AI era.

As more states adopt online age verification laws, how can policymakers protect minors without compromising privacy and free expression? What cybersecurity risks arise when third-party services collect sensitive personal information? And could mobile driver's licenses offer a more secure and privacy-preserving approach to age verification?To explore these questions, Shane recently moderated a panel with Scott Vien, Harry Oppenheimer, and Paul Lekas. Vien is the program manager for the Digital Trust Service at the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators (AAMVA), where he oversees digital trust initiatives involving mobile driver's licenses and identification. Oppenheimer is an assistant professor at Georgia Tech's Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter School of Public Policy and co-director of the Center for Digital Human Security, where he studies digital globalization and the politics of cybersecurity. Lekas is the executive vice president for Global Public Policy and Government Affairs at the Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA), where he leads policy efforts on cybersecurity, data protection, privacy, and internet regulation. In this recording of their panel conversation, they discuss the technical limitations of age verification, the privacy and security risks associated with third-party services, and how data minimization and trusted credentials could help address these challenges.

Cable companies are now offering mobile service, wireless carriers are competing for home broadband customers, and satellite providers are even expanding their offerings. As these historically distinct markets converge, policymakers face new questions about competition and connectivity. What regulatory reforms would help bring broadband to unserved communities while keeping service affordable? Why does access to unlicensed spectrum matter for the future of Wi-Fi? And how could China’s efforts to shape global spectrum policy affect American technology companies?To discuss this, Shane is joined by Sam Love, chief policy and strategy officer at NCTA—The Internet & Television Association. Previously, he co-chaired Invariant’s technology and competition government relations practice and served as a senior policy advisor to then-Senator Cory Gardner, managing the senator’s work on the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee.

“American Dynamism” is the idea that by retooling workers, rebuilding our country’s industrial backbone can take a decade rather than generations. In this episode, we explore what the practical requirements of this work would be. How can commercialized nuclear energy help meet rising energy demand across critical industries? What’s the most pressing issue in the American regulatory environment? And if American Dynamism works, what will America look like in 2035?To discuss this, Shane is joined by David Ulevitch, general partner at Andreessen Horowitz, where he leads the firm’s American Dynamism team. Previously, he founded OpenDNS, which he sold to Cisco, and has since backed companies like Anduril, Flock Safety, and Radiant. His technical and policy background makes for an engaging episode.

On a global scale, we have seen a rise in the development and enactment of legislation that bans minors from using social media to keep them safe. But what does early evidence of these bills tell us about whether they are working as intended? What's the case for age-appropriate spaces and content instead? And should chatbots be regulated similarly? To discuss this, Shane is joined by Josh Tabish, senior director for Canada at the Chamber of Progress. Previously, he served as the director of policy and advocacy at the Canadian Internet Registration Authority as well as a Ford Foundation / Media Democracy Fund Technology Exchange Fellow for Fight for the Future. His extensive portfolio covers domestic and international technology policy issues.

Artificial intelligence is transforming the legal and tax sectors of business. However, neither the legal nor the tax establishments may be ready for what’s coming. There's a real tension here. On one side, lawyers are using AI to draft filings and manage their work, and some firms are building their own AI systems. On the other hand, the legal world remains slow to adopt this new tool. What does that look like in practice? Would more consistent, data-driven outcomes make justice fairer, or merely more uniform? And when an AI system contributes to a legal decision, who is accountable if it gets something wrong?To discuss this and more, Benjamin Alarie joins Shane. Benjamin is a leading voice in this debate and the coauthor, with Samuel Becher, of a new book, Superjustice: Law in the Age of Artificial Intelligence. He originated the concept of the “legal singularity,” the idea that advances in artificial intelligence could eventually make the outcomes of legal disputes almost perfectly predictable and perhaps even automate much of the practice of law. Ben is also the cofounder and CEO of Blue J, which uses the latest large language models and a vast database of authoritative tax content to deliver high-quality, source-driven answers to challenging tax questions.

Employees at several leading AI companies are asking the US government and international bodies to slow the development of frontier models. Doing so would put governments in the position of deciding when new models are safe enough to release. Yet policymakers also warn that the United States must move faster than China and that prerelease reviews could stifle innovation. Are these two goals in tension with one another? Can existing laws and liability rules address AI harms without giving governments control over which models reach the market? And can any international institution realistically govern a technology spread across the entire digital economy?To discuss this, Shane is joined by Milton Mueller and Adam Thierer. Milton is a professor and director of the master of science in cybersecurity program at Georgia Tech University’s Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter School of Public Policy. He is also the cofounder and director of the Internet Governance Project at Georgia Tech. Adam is a resident senior fellow with the technology and innovation team at the R Street Institute and a visiting senior fellow at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression.

Until recently, concerns about AI agents conducting autonomous cyber operations were largely theoretical. The OpenAI–Hugging Face incident in July changed that, while Anthropic’s Mythos exposed software vulnerabilities buried for decades. Together, these incidents have forced policymakers to reconsider how governments and companies prepare for AI-enabled cyber threats. Can the federal government and private sector keep pace with increasingly capable models? Will open-source AI strengthen cyber defenses or make dangerous capabilities harder to contain? And can policymakers encourage companies to share threat information while holding them accountable for insecure systems?Shane joins Evan Swarztrauber in a crossover episode with The Center Edge. Evan is the founder of CorePoint Strategies and a senior fellow at the Digital Progress Institute. He previously served at the Federal Communications Commission as a policy adviser to then-Chairman Ajit Pai and Commissioner Brendan Carr.

Americans rely on wireless connections for nearly every part of modern life, and demand for the airwaves that make those connections possible is only growing. But much of the nation’s spectrum remains accessible by federal agencies under a system approaching its 100th anniversary. How can the United States free up more spectrum for commercial use? Can the military rely more heavily on commercial networks without compromising national security? And could market-based incentives help federal agencies use this valuable resource more efficiently?To discuss this, Shane is joined by Roslyn Layton, executive vice president at Strand Consult. She is also a digital policy fellow at Michigan State University’s Quello Center and a senior fellow at the National Security Institute at George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia Law School. She previously served as a visiting fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and on the president-elect’s transition team for the Federal Communications Commission.

New frontier AI models are changing the cybersecurity landscape. As advanced systems become more capable of finding and exploiting software vulnerabilities, the federal government is trying to determine how to protect critical infrastructure and maintain national security. The administration’s June executive order on AI and cybersecurity offers one answer, but it also raises several harder questions. Can the government keep up with rapidly developing models? If officials want to review every model before release, is that process really voluntary? And how can policymakers keep American networks safe without sacrificing innovation?To unpack what comes next, Shane is joined by Kevin Frazier in a crossover episode with Scaling Laws. Kevin is the director of the AI Innovation and Law Program at the University of Texas at Austin School of Law and a senior fellow at the Abundance Institute. He has testified before Congress on artificial intelligence and emerging technology issues and is a regular contributor to Lawfare.