The Dynamist

The White House and the state of Missouri are in a court battle over whether the Biden Administration crossed the line in trying to influence social media companies’ content moderation decisions—from Hunter Biden’s laptop to vaccine skeptics to the origins of COVID-19. The “Twitter Files,” documents released to select journalists by Elon Musk, as well as information unearthed by Missouri’s lawsuit, appear to show that the FBI, CIA, and other agencies either coerced, or heavily encouraged, social media companies to take certain actions.Many on the right say the Biden Administration violated the First Amendment by essentially co-opting social media companies into censoring speech that the government couldn’t censor itself. But many researchers and activists working on disinformation and misinformation worry that the outcome of this case could squelch legitimate government efforts to communicate with social media companies and combat foreign efforts to influence elections and American political discourse.So did the Biden Administration cross the line? Did Big Tech companies become “state actors?” Evan is joined by Ben Sperry, Senior Scholar of Innovation Policy at the International Center for Law and Economics and author of a new white paper on regulating misinformation on social media platforms.

Are the citizens of the EU at risk of becoming second-class digital citizens? It’s well known at this point that Europe doesn’t have its own version of Silicon Valley. Many believe that this is in large part due to its digital regulatory approach—the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the Digital Markets Act (DMA), and the AI act, among others. While Congress hasn’t passed a federal privacy law in the US, states like California have enacted rules similar to the EU model—at least on paper. Are the consequences of such regulation overstated? Is it possible to have consumer protection without sacrificing innovation? Evan discusses with Brian Chau, former mathematician and machine learning engineer and current research fellow at Alliance for the Future. He’s also the author of the widely-read AI Pluralism newsletter. In a recent piece for Pirate Wires, he argues that Europe’s digital regulations are turning EU residents into “second-class digital citizens.”

Are Chinese drones a security threat? Not the kind that drop bombs, but the ones you might see at the beach or a major sporting event—used to take aerial photos and videos. These drones aren’t just for hobbyists. Government agencies in the U.S. use them for policing to fighting wildfires. And they've been buying them for years, predominantly from a Chinese manufacturer named DJI. Since the early 2010s, DJI drones have allowed even a poorly coordinated amateur to shoot video and create high-quality maps, and the company today has a 70 percent global market share. So what’s the problem? The company has close ties to China's People’s Liberation Army and has the ability to disable its products from afar. Could America’s reliance on DJI be an economic or cybersecurity risk? Is this just another anti-China “red scare,” an outgrowth of the growing tensions and saber-rattling between the world’s two greatest powers? Evan is joined by Lars Erik Schönander, a policy technologist at the Foundation for American Innovation and author of a new paper for FAI, Securing the Skies: Chinese Drones and U.S. Cybersecurity Risks.*Correction: Evan misstated the publication of an article discussed on the episode. It was published in Foreign Policy, not Foreign Affairs. 

The European Union has designated six Big Tech companies as "gatekeepers" to the Internet—Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta, Microsoft, and ByteDance (TikTok's parent company). Experts & pundits are calling this designation under the EU’s Digital Markets Act the most significant action against Big Tech ever taken. As the U.S. Congress continues to avoid significant legislative action, Europe has stepped into the void. Will this be another example of the so-called Brussels effect, where European policy becomes de facto regulation for the entire Western World? How will the companies respond, and what impact will it have on consumers? Joining Evan is FAI Director of Outreach Luke Hogg, whose tech policy research focuses on decentralization and innovation. Read his recent piece on the "Brussels effect" for Pirate Wires here.

It’s been seven years since Pokemon Go introduced augmented reality to the masses and caused a global craze. Since then, consumers have used a slew of applications that alter their reality—from more mundane uses like TikTok filters adding cat ears to someone’s head to more immersive experiences like Meta’s Oculus headset video games. Beyond shopping and gaming, augmented, virtual, and mixed reality software could become an invaluable tool for education. While research shows promise, classrooms have been slow to adopt immersive tech, just as they were slow to adopt PCs in the 80s and 90s. Could a research and development strategy that includes government investment help integrate this tech into the classroom? Evan is joined by Juan Londoño, policy analyst at the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF), where he focuses on augmented and virtual reality. You can read his paper on immersive learning here.

Tension between China and the U.S. is arguably at the highest it has been since President Nixon began normalizing relations decades ago. Yet, despite China’s treatment of ethnic minorities, its crackdown on Hong Kong, and threats against Taiwan, America remains economically entangled with the People’s Republic. How did the U.S. become so dependent on its chief geopolitical rival? What role did American businesses like Boeing and diplomats like Henry Kissinger play in the building of the modern relationship between the two nations? How has Beijing used the economic relationship to advance the Communist Party’s goals? How likely is war between the U.S. and China, and how would that impact trade and foreign investment?Evan is joined by Isaac Stone Fish, founder and CEO of Strategy Risks. He is also an adjunct professor at NYU's Center for Global Affairs and a visiting fellow at the Atlantic Council. He is the author of America Second: How America’s Elites are Making China Stronger.

As the saying goes, “if the service is free, you are the product.” In the social media age, many companies don't compete for our money, but for our time. While many traditional entertainment companies increasingly rely on monthly subscription fees, social media products like TikTok and Instagram are “free,” powered by consumer data used to sell advertising. What platforms compete with each other for our attention? Does watching TV make you less likely to use social media? Or are you just scrolling the small screen while watching the big screen? As policymakers consider the nature of competition and issues involving “Big Tech,” such as data privacy, how should they factor in how much attention consumers pay to different platforms? Joining us to discuss all of this is Scott Wallsten, President of the Technology Policy Institute and a PhD economist with broad expertise. His prior roles include stints at the FCC and White House Council of Economic Advisers. Read TPI’s paper on the attention economy here. 

What if your rabbi used ChatGPT to write a sermon? What if you asked a faith-based chat bot to help you with bible study? The proliferation of AI tech is changing every sector, including religion and theology. The mechanized sanctum is no longer theoretical, as the rise of AI in religious spaces poses both unprecedented opportunities and serious ethical challenges. It poses questions around the nature of sentience, personhood, and what constitutes a creator. Can a super-intelligent AI have a soul? And there are also more immediate questions: will certain faiths use AI more effectively to spread their gospel and grow their ranks? Does AI have a religious bent? Should there even be a place for this tech in religious practice at all?Evan is joined by friend of the podcast Nathan Leamer, CEO of Fixed Gear Strategies, a boutique tech policy consulting firm, and former policy advisor to FCC Chairman Ajit Pai.

Google is facing legal challenges that could strike at the heart of the company’s advertising business, which accounts for 80 percent of its global sales. The U.S. Department of Justice sued Google for allegedly monopolizing digital advertising technology (ad tech). Across the pond, the European Commission told the Big Tech giant recently its preliminary view that the company distorted competition in ad tech—favoring its own services to the detriment of competitors. The outcomes of these cases could force Google to divest significant portions of its business and potentially transform the tech industry.Is Google really guilty of the agencies’ claims? And how could proposed legislation in Congress impact the company going forward? Joining Evan is Mark Meador, partner at Kressin Meador, a boutique antitrust law firm. He was formerly Deputy Chief Counsel for Antitrust and Competition Policy for Senator Mike Lee. Prior to that, he was an attorney at both the DoJ and the FTC.

Will artificial intelligence spell the end of humanity? The concept has been implanted in American culture through dystopian phenomena like Terminator and The Matrix, but how real is this possibility? Since the public release of Open AI’s ChatGPT in late 2022, AI doomerism has played a key role in shaping the discourse around this rapidly advancing technology. “Artificial intelligence could lead to extinction,” blares the BBC. “The race to win the AI competition could doom us all,” warns The Japan Times. Some commentators have even said that we may need to bomb data centers to stop or slow AI development.Is so-called AI “doomerism” simply an outgrowth of AI-related science fiction? Or is there a concerted PR effort to frame the conversation? How does doomerism impact the debate over how/whether to regulate AI, and what positive applications of AI aren’t receiving enough attention?  Evan is joined by Perry Metzger, CEO of a stealth AI startup and founder of Alliance for the Future. You can read his work on his Substack, Diminished Capacity. Evan is also joined by Jon Askonas, a professor of politics at Catholic University and Senior Fellow at the Foundation for American Innovation. He has written broadly on tech and culture for outlets like Foreign Policy and American Affairs, and his work has been discussed at length in the New York Times.