Data is the most valuable resource on our planet, and the data economy impacts everything from mental health to human rights. On Season 2 of Technically Optimistic, host Raffi Krikorian engages engineers, activists, professors, and more to ask big questions about our data-driven era. How and why is our data being collected? How is it affecting our daily lives, our decision-making, our political systems? Perhaps most importantly, what does the future of data look like, and what can we do to help shape it? This season of Technically Optimistic is all about your data, and how you can gain back some...
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The way we use and understand data is rapidly evolving. So what does the future hold? Will backlash against surveillance capitalism result in protections that empower people to take control of their data? What’s going on with the new American Privacy Rights Act that’s currently moving through Congress? Raffi talks to experts about how we can understand — and help shape — the future of data, exploring new policy, digging into the concept of “digital doubles,” and assessing how data collection might play a role in coalition-building and reform.
Guests include Congresswoman Anna Eshoo (D-CA); Brandon Pugh, policy direct...
Episode 8 • 19 June 2024 • 1h, 1m and
The data boom has had an outsized impact on India and the Global South. This episode explores how the data economy has changed life on the ground in South Asia — and for tech workers in the US. What does the future of caste look like for the South Asian diaspora, and in the tech world at large? What can be done to mitigate the harms of caste discrimination? How can tech help resource marginalized populations, enable social mobility, and design a more sustainable, empowered future?
Raffi speaks with caste and technology scholar Murali Shanmugavelan; anthropologist Sareeta Amrute; Man...
Episode 7 • 12 June 2024 • 1h, 4m and 33s
Whether we like it or not, the kids are online — and they’re being tracked just like the rest of us. Who’s after their data, and why? We examine the harms minors face online — from how tech companies profit off addictive usership, to the consequences of social media on kids’ mental health and emotional development — and we explore some new proposals for how to protect their privacy. Are more parental controls the answer? Will newly-proposed laws be the key? Or will these bills cause more harm than good?
In this episode, Raffi is joined by U.S. Senator R...
Episode 6 • 5 June 2024 • 1h, 3m and 32s
New technologies, such as facial recognition, are being used by law enforcement to identify, locate, and convict people. Powered by data gathered from across the internet, these imperfect programs can sometimes get it wrong, resulting in wrongful arrests. Are these surveillance systems making us safer, or just the opposite? How can we conceptualize the relationship between data and criminal justice? Does the Fourth Amendment protect us from data-driven policing? And how can we maintain our own “cyber hygiene” to keep our data secure?
In this episode, Raffi talks to experts about these new technologies as they relate to ou...
Episode 5 • 22 May 2024 • 1h, 2m and 41s
Digital surveillance is becoming increasingly threatening to the reproductive rights of women and pregnant people in America after the fall of Roe v. Wade. Behavioral data collected from apps can be used to catalog — and criminalize — our health care choices. In this “wild west” surveillance economy, who is responsible for safeguarding our privacy? Could more and more of our data be weaponized against us in this same way? How can technology be harnessed to help protect privacy, rather than further jeopardize it?
Host Raffi Krikorian talks to people working to protect reproductive freedom in an ever-changing landscape. Guests in...
Episode 4 • 15 May 2024 • 56m and 47s
Modern political campaigning has become a massive data operation. In the US, candidates from both parties frequently use data to try and better understand voters, in hopes of swaying them on election day. But how, exactly, is voter information being acquired, analyzed, and employed to influence voters? Do modeling and targeting really move the needle? And how are political campaigns a microcosm of the data economy, illuminating how data can transform society?
In this episode, Raffi talks to election veterans, data specialists, and former colleagues from his time as CTO at the Democratic National Committee, to talk a...
Episode 3 • 8 May 2024 • 1h, 55s
When social media is at its best, we get genuine human connection, built-in audiences, and exciting avenues for creativity and exchange. But our current social platforms are built on a surveillance model, where our data is used to predict our behavior, show us ads, and train the algorithms that keep us perpetually on the platform. It’s time to explore a new vision for social media, where we don’t have to give up on privacy in order to connect.
In this episode, Raffi talks to prominent critics of existing social media — and the people actively reimagining it, wit...
Episode 2 • 1 May 2024 • 1h, 31s
How has our data become the world’s most valuable resource? What privacy tradeoffs are we making when we engage with personalized apps, recommendations, and always-connected smart devices? Is our personal data being used to make things better, or to make tech giants even more powerful? And what do “cookies” have to do with all this?
Host Raffi Krikorian chats with experts about data’s role in AI, “big data” and the data economy, surveillance capitalism, and much more. Guests include AI researcher Amba Kak, executive director of the AI Now Institute; data scientist Chris Wiggins, co-author of How Data Ha...
Episode 1 • 24 April 2024 • 50m and 50s
The second season of Technically Optimistic is all about your data. Who’s taking it? What are they doing with it? And how can you gain back some control?
Join host Raffi Krikorian, CTO of Emerson Collective, down this road. It’s going to lead to some predictable places — like AI and social media — but also to stories about health care, political campaigning, and criminal justice reform.
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To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy...
Episode • 10 March 2024 • 4m and 27s
On Monday, October 30th, Biden signed a landmark executive order on artificial intelligence safety and security. It was timed strategically, released the same week as VP Harris gave a speech at a UK AI summit. And, in the absence of any Congressional action, Biden’s document represents the most comprehensive and official policy of the United States on AI at the moment.
So, what’s in the executive order? Host Raffi Krikorian speaks with journalist Courtney Rozen, who covers the White House and tech policy for Bloomberg, and Suresh Venkatasubramanian, a Brown University computer science professor who co-w...
Episode • 3 November 2023 • 40m and 4s
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