Arbiters of Truth

On today's Scaling Laws episode, Alan Rozenshtein sat down with Pam Samuelson, the Richard M. Sherman Distinguished Professor of Law at the University of California, Berkeley, School of Law, to discuss the rapidly evolving legal landscape at the intersection of generative AI and copyright law. They dove into the recent district court rulings in lawsuits brought by authors against AI companies, including Bartz v. Anthropic and Kadrey v. Meta. They explored how different courts are treating the core questions of whether training AI models on copyrighted data is a transformative fair use and whether AI outputs create a “market dilution” effect that harms creators. They also touched on other key cases to watch and the role of the U.S. Copyright Office in shaping the debate. Mentioned in this episode:"How to Think About Remedies in the Generative AI Copyright Cases"by Pam Samuelson in LawfareAndy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc. v. GoldsmithBartz v. AnthropicKadrey v. Meta PlatformsThomson Reuters Enterprise Centre GmbH v. Ross Intelligence Inc.U.S. Copyright Office, Copyright and Artificial Intelligence, Part 3: Generative AI Training Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Joshua Gans, a professor at the University of Toronto and co-author of "Power and Prediction: The Disruptive Economics of Artificial Intelligence," joins Kevin Frazier, the AI Innovation and Law Fellow at the University of Texas School of Law and a Senior Editor at Lawfare, to evaluate ongoing concerns about AI-induced job displacement, the likely consequences of various regulatory proposals on AI innovation, and how AI tools are already changing higher education. Select works by Gans include: A Quest for AI Knowledge (https://www.nber.org/papers/w33566)Regulating the Direction of Innovation (https://www.nber.org/papers/w32741)How Learning About Harms Impacts the Optimal Rate of Artificial Intelligence Adoption (https://www.nber.org/papers/w32105) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Steven Adler, former OpenAI safety researcher, author of Clear-Eyed AI on Substack, and independent AGI-readiness researcher, joins Kevin Frazier, AI Innovation and Law Fellow at the University of Texas School of Law, to assess the current state of AI testing and evaluations. The two walk through Steven's views on industry efforts to improve model testing and what he thinks regulators ought to know and do when it comes to preventing AI harms. You can read Steven's Substack here: https://stevenadler.substack.com/ Thanks to Leo Wu for research assistance! Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Anu Bradford, Professor at Columbia Law School, and Kate Klonick, Senior Editor at Lawfare and Associate Professor at St. John's University School of Law, join Kevin Frazier, AI Innovation and Law Fellow at the University of Texas School of Law and a Senior Editor at Lawfare, to assess the ongoing contrasting and, at times, conflicting regulatory approaches to Big Tech being pursued by the EU and US. The trio start with an assessment of the EU's use of the Brussels Effect, coined by Anu, to shape AI development. Next, then explore the US's increasingly interventionist industrial policy with respect to key sectors, especially tech. Read more:Anu's op-ed in The New York TimesThe Impact of Regulation on Innovation by Philippe Aghion, Antonin Bergeaud & John Van ReenenDraghi Report on the Future of European Competitiveness Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Peter E. Harrell, Adjunct Senior Fellow at the Center for a New American Security, joins Kevin Frazier, AI Innovation and Law Fellow at the University of Texas School of Law and a Senior Editor at Lawfare, to examine the White House's announcement that it will take a 10% share of Intel. They dive into the policy rationale for the stake as well as its legality. Peter and Kevin also explore whether this is just the start of such deals given that President Trump recently declared that “there will be more transactions, if not in this industry then other industries.” Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

MacKenzie Price, co-founder of Alpha School, and Rebecca Winthrop, a senior fellow and director of the Center for Universal Education at the Brookings Institution, join Kevin Frazier, the AI Innovation and Law Fellow at the University of Texas School of Law and a Senior Editor at Lawfare, to review how AI is being integrated into the classroom at home and abroad. MacKenzie walks through the use of predictive AI in Alpha School classrooms. Rebecca provides a high-level summary of ongoing efforts around the globe to bring AI into the education pipeline. This conversation is particularly timely in the wake of the AI Action Plan, which built on the Trump administration's prior calls for greater use of AI from K to 12 and beyond. Learn more about Alpha School here: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/07/27/us/politics/ai-alpha-school-austin-texas.html and here: https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/your-review-alpha-schoolLearn about the Brookings Global Task Force on AI in Education here: https://www.brookings.edu/projects/brookings-global-task-force-on-ai-in-education/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Keegan McBride, Senior Policy Advisor in Emerging Technology and Geopolitics at the Tony Blair Institute, and Nathan Lambert, a post-training lead at the Allen Institute for AI, join Alan Rozenshein, Associate Professor at Minnesota Law and Research Director at Lawfare, and Kevin Frazier, the AI Innovation and Law Fellow at the University of Texas School of Law and a Senior Editor at Lawfare, to explore the current state of open source AI model development and associated policy questions.The pivot to open source has been swift following initial concerns that the security risks posed by such models outweighed their benefits. What this transition means for the US AI ecosystem and the global AI competition is a topic worthy of analysis by these two experts. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Alan Rozenshtein, research director at Lawfare, sat down with Sam Winter-Levy, a fellow in the Technology and International Affairs Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace; Janet Egan, a senior fellow with the Technology and National Security Program at the Center for a New American Security; and Peter Harrell, a nonresident fellow at Carnegie and a former senior director for international economics at the White House National Security Council under President Joe Biden.They discussed the Trump administration's recent decision to allow U.S. companies Nvidia and AMD to export a range of advanced AI semiconductors to China in exchange for a 15% payment to the U.S. government. They talked about the history of the export control regime targeting China's access to AI chips, the strategic risks of allowing China to acquire powerful chips like the Nvidia H20, and the potential harm to the international coalition that has worked to restrict China's access to this technology. They also debated the statutory and constitutional legality of the deal, which appears to function as an export tax, a practice explicitly prohibited by the Constitution.Mentioned in this episode:The Financial Times article breaking the news about the Nvidia dealThe Trump Administration's AI Action Plan Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Join us on Scaling Laws as we delve into the intricate world of AI policy with Dean Ball, former senior policy advisor at the White House's Office of Science and Technology Policy. Discover the behind-the-scenes insights into the Trump administration's AI Action Plan, the challenges of implementing AI policy at the federal level, and the evolving political landscape surrounding AI on the right. Dean shares his unique perspective on the opportunities and hurdles in shaping AI's future, offering a candid look at the intersection of technology, policy, and politics. Tune in for a thought-provoking discussion that explores the strategic steps America can take to lead in the AI era. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode, we talk about the intricate world of AI liability through the lens of agency law. Join us as Anat Lior explores the compelling case for using agency law to address the legal challenges posed by AI agents. Discover how analogies, such as principal-agent relationships, can help navigate the complexities of AI liability, and why it's crucial to ensure that someone is held accountable when AI systems cause harm. Tune in for a thought-provoking discussion on the future of AI governance and the evolving landscape of legal responsibility. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Brian Fuller, product policy leader at OpenAI joins Kevin on the challenges of designing policies that ensure AI technologies are safe, aligned, and socially beneficial. From the fast-paced landscape of AI development to the balancing of innovation with ethical responsibility. Tune in to gain insights into the frameworks that guide AI's integration into society and the critical questions that shape its future. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Renée DiResta, an Associate Research Professor at the McCourt School of Public Policy at Georgetown join Alan Rozenshtein and Kevin Frazier, to take a look at the Trump Administration's Woke AI policies, as set forth by a recent EO and explored in the AI Action Plan. This episode unpacks the implications of prohibiting AI models that fail to pursue objective truth and espouse "DEI" values. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode of Scaling Laws, Kevin Frazier is joined by Sayash Kapoor, co-author of "AI Snake Oil," to explore the complexities of AI development and its societal implications. They delve into the skepticism surrounding AGI claims, the real bottlenecks in AI adoption, and the transformative potential of AI as a general-purpose technology. Kapoor shares insights on the challenges of integrating AI into various sectors, the importance of empirical research, and the evolving nature of work in the AI era. The conversation also touches on the role of policy in shaping AI's future and the need for a nuanced understanding of AI's capabilities and limitations. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode, join Kevin Frazier as he delves into the complex world of AI regulation with experts Lauren Wagner of the Abundance Institute and Andrew Freedman, Chief Strategy Officer at Fathom. As the AI community eagerly awaits the federal government's AI action plan, our guests explore the current regulatory landscape and the challenges of implementing effective governance with bills like SB 813. Innovative approaches are being proposed, including the role of independent verification organizations and the potential for public-private partnerships.Be sure to check out Fathom's Substack here: https://fathomai.substack.com/subscribe?params=%5Bobject%20Object%5D Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Janet Egan, Senior Fellow with the Technology and National Security Program at the Center for a New American Security, Jessica Brandt, Senior Fellow for Technology and National Security at the Council on Foreign Relations, Neil Chilson, Head of AI Policy at Abundance Institute, and Tim Fist, Director of Emerging Technology Policy at the Institute for Progress join Kevin Frazier, the AI Innovation and Law Fellow at the University of Texas School of Law and a Senior Editor at Lawfare for a special version of Scaling Laws.This episode was recorded just hours after the release of the AI Action Plan. About 180 days ago, President Trump directed his administration to explore ways to achieve AI dominance. His staff has attempted to do just that. This group of AI researchers dives into the plan's extensive recommendations and explore what may come next. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Lt. Gen. (ret) Jack Shanahan joins Kevin Frazier to explore the nuanced landscape of AI in national security. Challenging the prevalent "AI arms race" narrative. The discussion delves into the complexities of AI integration in defense, the cultural shifts required within the Department of Defense, and the critical role of public trust and shared national vision. Tune in to understand how AI is reshaping military strategies and the broader implications for society. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Kevin Frazier brings Eugene Volokh, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and UCLA law professor, to explore the complexities of libel in the age of AI. Discover how AI-generated content challenges traditional legal frameworks and the implications for platforms under Section 230. This episode is a must-listen for anyone interested in the evolving landscape of AI and law. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Cass Madison, the Executive Director of the Center for Civic Futures, and Zach Boyd, Director of the AI Policy Office at the State of Utah, join Kevin Frazier, AI Innovation and Law Fellow at the University of Texas School of Law and a Senior Editor at Lawfare, to discuss how state governments are adjusting to the Age of AI. This conversation explores Cass's work to organize the increasing number of state officials tasked with thinking about AI adoption and regulation as well as Zach's experience leading one of the most innovative state AI offices. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In this episode of Scaling Laws, Alan and Kevin discuss the current state of AI growth, focusing on scaling laws, the future of AGI, and the challenges of AI integration into society with Ethan Mollick, Professor of Management at Wharton, specializing in entrepreneurship and innovation. They explore the bottlenecks in AI adoption, particularly the role of interfaces and the uncertainty surrounding AI development. Mollick discusses the transformative potential of AI in various fields, particularly education and medicine, as well as the need for empirical research to understand AI's impact, the importance of adapting teaching methods, and the challenges of cognitive de-skilling.More of Ethan Mollick's work: https://www.oneusefulthing.org/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On the inaugural episode of Scaling Laws, co-hosts Kevin Frazier, AI Innovation and Law Fellow at the University of Texas School of Law and a Senior Editor at Law, and Alan Rozenshtein, Professor at Minnesota Law and Research Director at Lawfare, speak with Adam Thierer, a senior fellow for the Technology and Innovation team at the R Street Institute, and Helen Toner, the Director of Strategy and Foundational Research Grants at Georgetown's Center for Security and Emerging Technology (CSET).They discuss the recent overwhelming defeat in the Senate of a proposed moratorium on state and local regulation of artificial intelligence. The conversation explores the moratorium's journey from its inclusion in a House bill to its ultimate failure, examining the procedural hurdles, the confusing legislative language, and the political maneuvering that led to its demise by a 99-to-1 vote. The group discuss the future of U.S. AI governance, covering the Republican party's fragmentation on tech policy and whether Congress's failure to act is a sign of it being broken or a deliberate policy choice.Mentioned in this episode: “The Continuing Tech Policy Realignment on the Right” by Adam Thierer in Medium “1,000 AI Bills: Time for Congress to Get Serious About Preemption” by Kevin Frazier and Adam Thierer in Lawfare “Congress Should Preempt State AI Safety Legislation” by Dean W. Ball and Alan Z. Rozenshtein in Lawfare "The Coming Techlash Could Kill AI Innovation Before It Helps Anyone" by Kevin Frazier in Reason "Unresolved debates about the future of AI" by Helen Toner in Rising Tide Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Scaling Laws explores (and occasionally answers) the questions that keep OpenAI's policy team up at night, the ones that motivate legislators to host hearings on AI and draft new AI bills, and the ones that are top of mind for tech-savvy law and policy students. Alan and Kevin dive into the intersection of AI, innovation policy, and the law through regular interviews with the folks deep in the weeds of developing, regulating, and adopting AI. They also provide regular rapid-response analysis of breaking AI governance news. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Last week the House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed a bill that would require ByteDance, the Chinese company that owns the popular social media app TikTok, to divest its ownership in the platform or face TikTok being banned in the United States. Although prospects for the bill in the Senate remain uncertain, President Biden has said he will sign the bill if it comes to his desk, and this is the most serious attempt yet to ban the controversial social media app.Today's podcast is the latest in a series of conversations we've had about TikTok. Matt Perault, the Director of the Center on Technology Policy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, led a conversation with Alan Rozenshtein, Associate Professor of Law at the University of Minnesota and Senior Editor at Lawfare, and Ramya Krishnan, a Senior Staff Attorney at the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University. They talked about the First Amendment implications of a TikTok ban, whether it's a good idea as a policy matter, and how we should think about foreign ownership of platforms more generally.Disclaimer: Matt's center receives funding from foundations and tech companies, including funding from TikTok. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Today, we're bringing you an episode of Arbiters of Truth, our series on the information ecosystem.On March 18, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Murthy v. Missouri, concerning the potential First Amendment implications of government outreach to social media platforms—what's sometimes known as jawboning. The case arrived at the Supreme Court with a somewhat shaky evidentiary record, but the legal questions raised by government requests or demands to remove online content are real. To make sense of it all, Lawfare Senior Editor Quinta Jurecic and Matt Perault, the Director of the Center on Technology Policy at UNC-Chapel Hill, called up Alex Abdo, the Litigation Director of the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University. While the law is unsettled, the Supreme Court seemed skeptical of the plaintiffs' claims of government censorship. But what is the best way to determine what contacts and government requests are and aren't permissible?If you're interested in more, you can read the Knight Institute's amicus brief in Murthy here and Knight's series on jawboning—including Perault's reflections—here. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In May 2023, Montana passed a new law that would ban the use of TikTok within the state starting on January 1, 2024. But as of today, TikTok is still legal in the state of Montana—thanks to a preliminary injunction issued by a federal district judge, who found that the Montana law likely violated the First Amendment. In Texas, meanwhile, another federal judge recently upheld a more limited ban against the use of TikTok on state-owned devices. What should we make of these rulings, and how should we understand the legal status of efforts to ban TikTok?We've discussed the question of TikTok bans and the First Amendment before on the Lawfare Podcast, when Lawfare Senior Editor Alan Rozenshtein and Matt Perault, Director of the Center on Technology Policy at UNC-Chapel Hill, sat down with Ramya Krishnan, a staff attorney at the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, and Mary-Rose Papandrea, the Samuel Ashe Distinguished Professor of Constitutional Law at the University of North Carolina School of Law. In light of the Montana and Texas rulings, Matt and Lawfare Senior Editor Quinta Jurecic decided to bring the gang back together and talk about where the TikTok bans stand with Ramya and Mary-Rose, on this episode of Arbiters of Truth, our series on the information ecosystem. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In 2021, the Wall Street Journal published a monster scoop: a series of articles about Facebook's inner workings, which showed that employees within the famously secretive company had raised alarms about potential harms caused by Facebook's products. Now, Jeff Horwitz, the reporter behind that scoop, has a new book out, titled “Broken Code”—which dives even deeper into the documents he uncovered from within the company. He's one of the most rigorous reporters covering Facebook, now known as Meta.On this episode of Arbiters of Truth, our series on the information ecosystem Lawfare Senior Editor Quinta Jurecic sat down with Jeff along with Matt Perault, the Director of the Center on Technology Policy at UNC-Chapel Hill—and also someone with close knowledge of Meta from his own time working at the company. They discussed Jeff's reporting and debated what his findings tell us about how Meta functions as a company and how best to understand its responsibilities for harms traced back to its products. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Unless you've been living under a rock, you've probably heard a great deal over the last year about generative AI and how it's going to reshape various aspects of our society. That includes elections. With one year until the 2024 U.S. presidential election, we thought it would be a good time to step back and take a look at how generative AI might and might not make a difference when it comes to the political landscape. Luckily, Matt Perault and Scott Babwah Brennen of the UNC Center on Technology Policy have a new report out on just that subject, examining generative AI and political ads.On this episode of Arbiters of Truth, our series on the information ecosystem, Lawfare Senior Editor Quinta Jurecic and Lawfare's Fellow in Technology Policy and Law Eugenia Lostri sat down with Matt and Scott to talk through the potential risks and benefits of generative AI when it comes to political advertising. Which concerns are overstated, and which are worth closer attention as we move toward 2024? How should policymakers respond to new uses of this technology in the context of elections? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Over the course of the last two presidential elections, efforts by social media platforms and independent researchers to prevent falsehoods from spreading about election integrity have become increasingly central to civic health. But the warning signs are flashing as we head into 2024. And platforms are arguably in a worse position to counter falsehoods today than they were in 2020. How could this be? On this episode of Arbiters of Truth, our series on the information ecosystem, Lawfare Senior Editor Quinta Jurecic sat down with Dean Jackson, who previously sat down with the Lawfare Podcast to discuss his work as a staffer on the Jan. 6 committee. He worked with the Center on Democracy and Technology to put out a new report on the challenges facing efforts to prevent the spread of election disinformation. They talked through the political, legal, and economic pressures that are making this work increasingly difficult—and what it means for 2024. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Today, we're bringing you an episode of Arbiters of Truth, our series on the information ecosystem. And we're discussing the hot topic of the moment: artificial intelligence. There are a lot of less-than-informed takes out there about AI and whether it's going to kill us all—so we're glad to be able to share an interview that hopefully cuts through some of that noise.Janet Haven is the Executive Director of the nonprofit Data and Society and a member of the National Artificial Intelligence Advisory Committee, which provides guidance to the White House on AI issues. Lawfare Senior Editor Quinta Jurecic sat down alongside Matt Perault, Director of the Center on Technology and Policy at UNC-Chapel Hill, to talk through their questions about AI governance with Janet. They discussed how she evaluates the dangers and promises of artificial intelligence, how to weigh the different concerns posed by possible future existential risk to society posed by AI versus the immediate potential downsides of AI in our everyday lives, and what kind of regulation she'd like to see in this space. If you're interested in reading further, Janet mentions this paper from Data and Society on “Democratizing AI” in the course of the conversation. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

How much influence do social media platforms have on American politics and society? It's a tough question for researchers to answer—not just because it's so big, but also because platforms rarely if ever provide all the data that would be needed to address the problem. A new batch of papers released in the journals Science and Nature marks the latest attempt to tackle this question, with access to data provided by Facebook's parent company Meta. The 2020 Facebook & Instagram Research Election Study, a partnership between Meta researchers and outside academics, studied the platforms' impact on the 2020 election—and uncovered some nuanced findings, suggesting that these impacts might be less than you'd expect.Today on Arbiters of Truth, our series on the information ecosystem, Lawfare Senior Editors Alan Rozenshtein and Quinta Jurecic are joined by the project's co-leaders, Talia Stroud of the University of Texas at Austin and Joshua A. Tucker of NYU. They discussed their findings, what it was like to work with Meta, and whether or not this is a model for independent academic research on platforms going forward.(If you're interested in more on the project, you can find links to the papers and an overview of the findings here, and an FAQ, provided by Tucker and Stroud, here.) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Earlier this year, Brian Fishman published a fantastic paper with Brookings thinking through how technology platforms grapple with terrorism and extremism, and how any reform to Section 230 must allow those platforms space to continue doing that work. That's the short description, but the paper is really about so much more—about how the work of content moderation actually takes place, how contemporary analyses of the harms of social media fail to address the history of how platforms addressed Islamist terror, and how we should understand “the original sin of the internet.” For this episode of Arbiters of Truth, our occasional series on the information ecosystem, Lawfare Senior Editor Quinta Jurecic sat down to talk with Brian about his work. Brian is the cofounder of Cinder, a software platform for the kind of trust and safety work we describe here, and he was formerly a policy director at Meta, where he led the company's work on dangerous individuals and organizations. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Generative AI products have been tearing up the headlines recently. Among the many issues these products raise is whether or not their outputs are protected by Section 230, the foundational statute that shields websites from liability for third-party content.On this episode of Arbiters of Truth, Lawfare's occasional series on the information ecosystem, Lawfare Senior Editor Quinta Jurecic and Matt Perault, Director of the Center on Technology and Policy at UNC-Chapel Hill, talked through this question with Senator Ron Wyden and Chris Cox, formerly a U.S. congressman and SEC chairman. Cox and Wyden drafted Section 230 together in 1996—and they're skeptical that its protections apply to generative AI. Disclosure: Matt consults on tech policy issues, including with platforms that work on generative artificial intelligence products and have interests in the issues discussed. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In 2018, news broke that Facebook had allowed third-party developers—including the controversial data analytics firm Cambridge Analytica—to obtain large quantities of user data in ways that users probably didn't anticipate. The fallout led to a controversy over whether Cambridge Analytica had in some way swung the 2016 election for Trump (spoiler: it almost certainly didn't), but it also generated a $5 billion fine imposed on Facebook by the FTC for violating users' privacy. Along with that record-breaking fine, the FTC also imposed a number of requirements on Facebook to improve its approach to privacy. It's been four years since that settlement, and Facebook is now Meta. So how much has really changed within the company? For this episode of Arbiters of Truth, our series on the online information ecosystem, Lawfare Senior Editors Alan Rozenshtein and Quinta Jurecic interviewed Meta's co-chief privacy officers, Erin Egan and Michel Protti, about the company's approach to privacy and its response to the FTC's settlement order.At one point in the conversation, Quinta mentions a class action settlement over the Cambridge Analytica scandal. You can read more about the settlement here. Information about Facebook's legal arguments regarding user privacy interests is available here and here, and you can find more details in the judge's ruling denying Facebook's motion to dismiss.Note: Meta provides support for Lawfare's Digital Social Contract paper series. This podcast episode is not part of that series, and Meta does not have any editorial role in Lawfare. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

If someone lies about you, you can usually sue them for defamation. But what if that someone is ChatGPT? Already in Australia, the mayor of a town outside Melbourne has threatened to sue OpenAI because ChatGPT falsely named him a guilty party in a bribery scandal. Could that happen in America? Does our libel law allow that? What does it even mean for a large language model to act with "malice"? Does the First Amendment put any limits on the ability to hold these models, and the companies that make them, accountable for false statements they make? And what's the best way to deal with this problem: private lawsuits or government regulation?On this episode of Arbiters of Truth, our series on the information ecosystem, Alan Rozenshtein, Associate Professor of Law at the University of Minnesota and Senior Editor at Lawfare, discussed these questions with First Amendment expert Eugene Volokh, Professor of Law at UCLA and the author of a draft paper entitled "Large Libel Models.” Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Over the past few years, TikTok has become a uniquely polarizing social media platform. On the one hand, millions of users, especially those in their teens and twenties, love the app. On the other hand, the government is concerned that TikTok's vulnerability to pressure from the Chinese Communist Party makes it a serious national security threat. There's even talk of banning the app altogether. But would that be legal? In particular, does the First Amendment allow the government to ban an application that's used by millions to communicate every day?On this episode of Arbiters of Truth, our series on the information ecosystem, Matt Perault, director of the Center on Technology Policy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and Alan Z. Rozenshtein, Lawfare Senior Editor and Associate Professor of Law at the University of Minnesota, spoke with Ramya Krishnan, a staff attorney at the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, and Mary-Rose Papendrea, the Samuel Ashe Distinguished Professor of Constitutional Law at the University of North Carolina School of Law, to think through the legal and policy implications of a TikTok ban. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On the latest episode of Arbiters of Truth, Lawfare's series on the information ecosystem, Quinta Jurecic and Alan Rozenshtein spoke with Ravi Iyer, the Managing Director of the Psychology of Technology Institute at the University of Southern California's Neely Center.Earlier in his career, Ravi held a number of positions at Meta, where he worked to make Facebook's algorithm provide actual value, not just "engagement," to users. Quinta and Alan spoke with Ravi about why he thinks that content moderation is a dead-end and why thinking about the design of technology is the way forward to make sure that technology serves us and not the other way around. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

During recent oral arguments in Gonzalez v. Google, a Supreme Court case concerning the scope of liability protections for internet platforms, Justice Neil Gorsuch asked a thought-provoking question. Does Section 230, the statute that shields websites from liability for third-party content, apply to a generative AI model like ChatGPT? Luckily, Matt Perault of the Center on Technology Policy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill had already been thinking about this question and published a Lawfare article arguing that 230's protections wouldn't extend to content generated by AI. Lawfare Senior Editors Quinta Jurecic and Alan Rozenshtein sat down with Matt and Jess Miers, legal advocacy counsel at the Chamber of Progress, to debate whether ChatGPT's output constitutes third-party content, whether companies like OpenAI should be immune for the output of their products, and why you might want to sue a chatbot in the first place. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

You've likely heard of ChatGPT, the chatbot from OpenAI. But you've likely never heard an interview with ChatGPT, much less an interview in which ChatGPT reflects on its own impact on the information ecosystem. Nor is it likely that you've ever heard ChatGPT promising to stop producing racist and misogynistic content. But, on this episode of Arbiters of Truth, Lawfare's occasional series on the information ecosystem, Lawfare editor-in-chief Benjamin Wittes sat down with ChatGPT to talk about a range of things: the pronouns it prefers; academic integrity and the chatbot's likely impact on that; and importantly, the experiments performed by a scholar name Eve Gaumond, who has been on a one-woman campaign to get ChatGPT to write offensive content. ChatGPT made some pretty solid representations that this kind of thing may be in its past, but wouldn't ever be in its future again.So, following Ben's interview with ChatGPT, he sat down with Eve Gaumond, an AI scholar at the Public Law Center of the University of Montréal, who fact-checked ChatGPT's claims. Can you still get it to write a poem entitled, “She Was Smart for a Woman”? Can you get it to write a speech by Heinrich Himmler about Jews? And can you get ChatGPT to write a story belittling the Holocaust? Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Tech policy reform occupies a strange place in Washington, D.C. Everyone seems to agree that the government should change how it regulates the technology industry, on issues from content moderation to privacy—and yet, reform never actually seems to happen. But while the federal government continues to stall, state governments are taking action. More and more, state-level officials are proposing and implementing changes in technology policy. Most prominently, Texas and Florida recently passed laws restricting how platforms can moderate content, which will likely be considered by the Supreme Court later this year.On this episode of Arbiters of Truth, our occasional series on the information ecosystem, Lawfare senior editor Quinta Jurecic spoke with J. Scott Babwah Brennen and Matt Perault of the Center on Technology Policy at UNC-Chapel Hill. In recent months, they've put together two reports on state-level tech regulation. They talked about what's driving this trend, why and how state-level policymaking differs—and doesn't—from policymaking at the federal level, and what opportunities and complications this could create. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

On November 19, Twitter's new owner Elon Musk announced that he would be reinstating former President Donald Trump's account on the platform—though so far, Trump hasn't taken Musk up on the offer, preferring instead to stay on his bespoke website Truth Social. Meanwhile, Meta's Oversight Board has set a January 2023 deadline for the platform to decide whether or not to return Trump to Facebook following his suspension after the Jan. 6 insurrection. How should we think through the difficult question of how social media platforms should handle the presence of a political leader who delights in spreading falsehoods and ginning up violence?Luckily for us, Stanford and UCLA recently held a conference on just that. On this episode of Arbiters of Truth, our series on the online information ecosystem, Lawfare senior editors Alan Rozenshtein and Quinta Jurecic sat down with the conference's organizers, election law experts Rick Hasen and Nate Persily, to talk about whether Trump should be returned to social media. They debated the tangled issues of Trump's deplatforming and replatforming … and discussed whether, and when, Trump will break the seal and start tweeting again. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

When Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen shared a trove of internal company documents to the Wall Street Journal in 2021, some of the most dramatic revelations concerned the company's use of a so-called “cross-check” system that, according to the Journal, essentially exempted certain high-profile users from the platform's usual rules. After the Journal published its report, Facebook—which has since changed its name to Meta—asked the platform's independent Oversight Board to weigh in on the program. And now, a year later, the Board has finally released its opinion. On this episode of Arbiters of Truth, our series on the online information ecosystem, Lawfare senior editors Alan Rozenshtein and Quinta Jurecic sat down with Suzanne Nossel, a member of the Oversight Board and the CEO of PEN America. She talked us through the Board's findings, its criticisms of cross-check, and its recommendations for Meta going forward. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It's Election Day in the United States—so while you wait for the results to come in, why not listen to a podcast about the other biggest story obsessing the political commentariat right now? We're talking, of course, about Elon Musk's purchase of Twitter and the billionaire's dramatic and erratic changes to the platform. In response to Musk's takeover, a great number of Twitter users have made the leap to Mastodon, a decentralized platform that offers a very different vision of what social media could look like. What exactly is decentralized social media, and how does it work? Lawfare senior editor Alan Rozenshtein has a paper on just that, and he sat down with Lawfare senior editor Quinta Jurecic on the podcast to discuss for an episode of our Arbiters of Truth series on the online information ecosystem. They were also joined by Kate Klonick, associate professor of law at St. John's University, to hash out the many, many questions about content moderation and the future of the internet sparked by Musk's reign and the new popularity of Mastodon.Among the works mentioned in this episode:“Welcome to hell, Elon. You break it, you buy it,” by Nilay Patel on The Verge“Hey Elon: Let Me Help You Speed Run The Content Moderation Learning Curve,” by Mike Masnick on Techdirt Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Supreme Court has granted cert in two cases exploring the interactions between anti-terrorism laws and Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. To discuss the cases, Lawfare editor-in-chief Benjamin Wittes sat down on Arbiters of Truth, our occasional series on the online information ecosystem, with Lawfare senior editors and Rational Security co-hosts Quinta Jurecic, Alan Rozenshtein, and Scott R. Anderson. They discussed the state of 230 law, what the Supreme Court has taken on, what the lower court did, and if there is a right answer here and what it might look like. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Today, we're bringing you another episode of our Arbiters of Truth series on the online information ecosystem. Lawfare senior editor Quinta Jurecic spoke with Mark Bergen, a reporter for Bloomberg News and Businessweek, about his new book, “Like, Comment, Subscribe: Inside YouTube's Chaotic Rise to World Domination.” YouTube is one of the largest and most influential social media platforms, but Bergen argues that it's long been “criminally undercovered.” As he tells it, the story of YouTube has a great deal to tell us about the development of the modern attention economy, the promise and pitfalls of the internet, and the struggles of platforms to grapple with their own influence and responsibility. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Our Arbiters of Truth series on the online information ecosystem has been taking a bit of a hiatus—but we're back! On today's episode, we're discussing the recent ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in NetChoice v. Paxton, upholding a Texas law that binds large social media platforms to certain transparency requirements and significantly limits their ability to moderate content. The decision is truly a wild ride—so unhinged that it's difficult to figure out where First Amendment law in this area might go next.To discuss, Lawfare senior editor Quinta Jurecic sat down with fellow Lawfare senior editor Alan Rozenshtein and Alex Abdo, the litigation director at the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University—who's come on the podcast before to discuss the case. They tried to make sense of the Fifth Circuit's ruling and chart out alternative possibilities for what good-faith jurisprudence on social media regulation might look like. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A few weeks ago on Arbiters of Truth, our series on the online information system, we brought you a conversation with two emergency room doctors about their efforts to push back against members of their profession spreading falsehoods about the coronavirus. Today, we're going to take a look at another profession that's been struggling to counter lies and falsehoods within its ranks: the law. Recently, lawyers involved in efforts to overturn the 2020 election have faced professional discipline—like Rudy Giuliani, whose law license has been suspended temporarily in New York and D.C. while a New York ethics investigation remains ongoing.Quinta Jurecic sat down with Paul Rosenzweig a contributing editor at Lawfare and a board member with the 65 Project, an organization that seeks to hold accountable lawyers who worked to help Trump hold onto power in 2020—often by spreading lies. He's also spent many years working on issues related to legal ethics. So what avenues of discipline are available for lawyers who tell lies about elections? How does the legal discipline process work? And how effective can legal discipline be in reasserting the truth? See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

You've likely heard that Elon Musk wanted to buy Twitter… and that he is now trying to get out of buying Twitter… and that at first he wanted to defeat the bots on Twitter… but now he's apparently surprised that there are lots of bots on Twitter. It's a spectacle made for the headlines, but it's also, at its core, a regular old corporate law dispute. This week on Arbiters of Truth, our series on the online information ecosystem, Evelyn Douek spoke with Adriana Robertson, the Donald N. Pritzker Professor of Business Law at the University of Chicago Law School, to talk about the legal issues behind the headlines. What is the Delaware Court of Chancery in which Musk and Twitter are going to face off? Will it care at all about the bots? And how do corporate lawyers think and talk about this differently from how it gets talked about in most of the public conversation about it? See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

When the Supreme Court handed down its opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, overturning Roe v. Wade, the impact of the decision on the internet may not have been front of mind for most people thinking through the implications. But in the weeks after the Court's decision, it's become clear that the post-Dobbs legal landscape around abortion implicates many questions around not only data and digital privacy, but also online speech. One piece of model state legislation, for example, would criminalize “hosting or maintaining a website, or providing internet service, that encourages or facilitates efforts to obtain an illegal abortion.” This week on Arbiters of Truth, our series on the online information ecosystem, Evelyn Douek and Quinta Jurecic spoke with Evan Greer, the director of the digital rights organization Fight for the Future. She recently wrote an article in Wired with Lia Holland arguing that “Section 230 is a Last Line of Defense for Abortion Speech Online.” They talked about what role Section 230's protections have to play when it comes to liability for speech about abortion and what content moderation looks like in a post-Dobbs world. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Since the beginning of the pandemic, we've talked a lot on this show about how falsehoods about the coronavirus are spread and generated. For this episode, Evelyn Douek and Quinta Jurecic spoke with two emergency medicine physicians who have seen the practical effects of those falsehoods while treating patients over the last two years. Nick Sawyer and Taylor Nichols are two of the cofounders of the organization No License for Disinformation, a group that advocates for medical authorities to take disciplinary action against doctors spreading misinformation and disinformation about COVID-19. They argue that state medical boards, which grant physicians the licenses that authorize them to practice medicine, could play a more aggressive role in curbing falsehoods. How many doctors have been disciplined, and why do Nick and Taylor believe that state medical boards have fallen down on the job? What are the possibilities for more aggressive action—and how does the First Amendment limit those possibilities? And how much good can the threat of discipline do in curbing medical misinformation, anyway? See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Algorithms! We hear a lot about them. They drive social media platforms and, according to popular understanding, are responsible for a great deal of what's wrong about the internet today—and maybe the downfall of democracy itself. But … what exactly are algorithms? And, given they're not going away, what should they be designed to do?Evelyn Douek and Quinta Jurecic spoke with Jonathan Stray, a senior scientist at the Berkeley Center for Human-Compatible AI and someone who has thought a lot about what we mean when we say the word “algorithm”—and also when we discuss things like “engagement” and “amplification.” He helped them pin down a more precise understanding of what those terms mean and why that precision is so important in crafting good technology policy. They also talked about what role social media algorithms do and don't play in stoking political polarization, and how they might be designed to decrease polarization instead.If you're interested, you can read the Senate testimony by Dean Eckles on algorithms that Jonathan mentions during the show.We also mentioned this article by Daniel Kreiss on polarization. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

The House committee investigating the Jan. 6 insurrection is midway through a blockbuster series of hearings exploring Donald Trump's efforts to overturn the 2020 election and disrupt the peaceful transfer of power. Central to those efforts, of course, was the Big Lie—the false notion that Trump was cheated out of victory in 2020.This week on Arbiters of Truth, our series on the online information ecosystem, Evelyn Douek and Quinta Jurecic spoke with Kate Starbird, an associate professor of Human Centered Design & Engineering at the University of Washington—and repeat Arbiters of Truth guest. Kate has come on the show before to talk about misinformation and Jan. 6, and she and a team of coauthors just released a comprehensive analysis of tweets spreading misinformation around the 2020 election. So she's the perfect person with whom to discuss the Jan. 6 committee hearings and misinformation. What does Kate's research show about how election falsehoods spread, and who spread them? How has, and hasn't, the Jan. 6 committee incorporated the role of misinformation into the story it's telling about the insurrection? And is there any chance the committee can break through and get the truth to the people who most need to hear it? See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

If you've been watching the hearings convened by the House select committee on Jan. 6, you've seen a great deal about how the Trump campaign generated and spread falsehoods about supposed election fraud in 2020. As the committee has argued, those falsehoods were crucial in generating the political energy that culminated in the explosion of the January 6 insurrection. What shape did those lies take, and how did social media platforms attempt to deal with them at the time? Today, we're bringing you an episode of our Arbiters of Truth series on the online information ecosystem. In fact, we're rebroadcasting an episode we recorded in November 2020 about disinformation and the 2020 election. In late November 2020, after Joe Biden cemented his victory as the next president but while the Trump campaign was still pushing its claims of election fraud online and in court, Evelyn Douek and Quinta Jurecic spoke with Alex Stamos, the director of the Stanford Internet Observatory. Their conversation then was a great overview of the state of election security and the difficulty of countering false claims around the integrity of the vote. It's worth a listen today as the Jan. 6 committee reminds us what the political and media environment was like in the aftermath of the election and how the Trump campaign committed to election lies that still echo all too loudly. And though it's a year and a half later, the problems we're discussing here certainly haven't gone away. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.