I was at the White House for almost six years. And most of the time that I was there was spent on trying to bring sort of these best practices that we knew worked in the tech industry to bear in government when it came to policy implementation.
New America (Page 1 of 3)
Civic Tech for Good
presented by Baratunde Thurston, Vivian Graubard
The Spawn of Frankenstein: Fear of the Unknown
presented by Annalee Newitz, Bina Venkataraman, David Guston, Charlotte Gordon, Jacob Brogan
It’s not the strangeness of new technologies that frightens us but the way technology threatens to make us strangers to ourselves. In a semi-Freudian spirit, then, I’d like to propose that where Frankenstein and its spawn are concerned, our fear of the unknown may really be about our discomfort with knowing.
The Spawn of Frankenstein: Unintended Consequences
presented by Cara LaPointe, Joey Eschrich, Samuel Arbesman, Susan Tyler Hitchcock
Victor’s sin wasn’t in being too ambitious, not necessarily in playing God. It was in failing to care for the being he created, failing to take responsibility and to provide the creature what it needed to thrive, to reach its potential, to be a positive development for society instead of a disaster.
The Spawn of Frankenstein: It’s Alive
presented by Ed Finn
Mary Shelley’s novel has been an incredibly successful modern myth. And so this conversation today is not just about what happened 200 years ago, but the remarkable ways in which that moment and that set of ideas has continued to percolate and evolve and reform in culture, in technological research, in ethics, since then.
The Spawn of Frankenstein: Playing God
presented by Ed Finn, Josephine Johnston, Nancy Kress, Patric M. Verrone
In Shelley’s vision, Frankenstein was the modern Prometheus. The hip, up to date, learned, vital god who chose to create human life and paid the dire consequences. To Shelley, gods create and for humans to do that is bad. Bad for others but especially bad for one’s creator.
Rise of the Hacker Industrial Complex
presented by Niloofar Howe
We have basically lost control over our network. All of the advances that have made our lives more productive, more accessible, more connected, have fundamentally disintermediated our ability to protect our environments. The democratization of information, of technology, of goods and services, of banking, of financial transactions with blockchain etc., means every aspect of our lives has become accessible and therefore vulnerable.
A #Netfreedom Agenda for the 45th POTUS
presented by Amie Stepanovich, Daniel Calingaert, David A. Gross, Nilmini Rubin, Rebecca MacKinnon
In addition to freedom to connect, there also needs to be the ability to connect, and that we need to model best practice at home and around the world, and the policies that relate to that.
Who and What Will Get to Think the Future?
presented by Ed Finn, Ted Chiang
There’s already a kind of cognitive investment that we make, you know. At a certain point, you have years of your personal history living in somebody’s cloud. And that goes beyond merely being a memory bank, it’s also a cognitive bank in some way.
Robert Reich’s Advice for the Next President
presented by Robert Reich
The next President is probably going to have to deal with some very difficult economic times. The housing market is starting to look like a bubble. There’s a possibility of that bubble bursting. We’ve been there before.
Peter W. Singer’s Advice for the Next President
presented by Peter W. Singer
If I had to suggest one job for the next President to do for a day, it would be to take on the role of a military spouse whose wife has deployed abroad.