2023 Annual Report: Letter from the CEO
Our future selves will look back on 2023 as a year of AI transformation, as foundation models entered widespread use and drove new public attention to the opportunities and risks of AI.
At CDT, we responded to new questions — like how generative AI will transform our information environment, and how highly-capable foundation models should be governed — while continuing our long-standing work on the many ways AI is already shaping people’s lives and our society: in hiring decisions, the administration of public benefits, heightened law enforcement capabilities, online content moderation, and more.
The governance challenges raised by AI weave together threads that CDT has pursued throughout our history: how to embrace the power of innovation for social good, while protecting against harmful uses. Generative AI raises, in new form, ongoing questions about acceptable expressive uses of technology, and the impact of mis- and disinformation. AI exacerbates age-old concerns about the power of governments and companies to make inferences about people in ways that can invade their privacy and threaten their freedoms, harm marginalized groups, and deepen social inequality. Calls for government programs to embrace AI in the name of efficiency raise familiar questions about privacy and due process, equitable design, and transparent and accountable oversight.
When someone asks me, “Who at CDT works on AI?,” my answer is,
“Everyone.”
For these reasons, when someone asks me, “Who at CDT works on AI?,” my answer is, “Everyone.” We believe in grounding conversations about AI in concrete use cases that engage existing communities of expertise—from government surveillance, to commercial uses, to civic technology and the education sector, to elections, and online expression. In 2023, CDT shaped AI policy in each of these areas, seeing important wins in the Biden Administration’s cross-cutting AI Executive Order and the EU’s groundbreaking AI Act. With CDT’s signature combination of technical, legal, and research expertise, we also launched a new AI Governance Lab that directly focuses on developing, analyzing, and amplifying best practices for AI governance.
This “AI moment” underscores the importance of CDT’s approach working with communities most impacted by new technologies. In our AI work and elsewhere, we continued our collaborations with groups representing consumer interests, civil rights, workers’ rights, housing equity, immigrants’ rights, and more to highlight how technology impacts different people across society —and to support those groups’ engagement in shaping tech policy. Meanwhile, CDT’s Research team conducted high-impact studies to understand how users are experiencing certain technologies—and what users want. We engaged directly with companies and policymakers to share these views, bridging communities to drive more informed and participatory decision-making.
Policy priorities other than AI also loomed large. We began the year with CDT’s legal brief being cited by name during U.S. Supreme Court oral arguments for Gonzalez v. Google, one of five major cases involving online speech taken up by the Court in 2023. CDT filed amicus briefs in all of those cases, as well as several others involving government surveillance and online speech.
We also pursued an active policy agenda on surveillance reform, privacy legislation, and children’s online safety, including a significant rise in state-level activity in the U.S. In the run-up to a seismic global election year, we championed nonpartisan election auditing, defended researchers who study mis- and disinformation, and urged social media companies to maintain robust election integrity programs.
CDT Europe continued to grow, adding two new Programme Directors and playing a leading role convening civil society input on the EU AI Act, implementation of the Digital Services Act, and proposed regulations around political advertising, online gender-based violence, and more. Globally, CDT grew to a staff of almost 50 people, joined by a flourishing community of Visiting and Non-Resident Fellows, externs, and interns.
This growth would not be possible without the support of the foundations, companies, and individuals who believe in CDT’s work—our sincere gratitude to each and every one of you.
As we move into a major global election year, our commitment to ensuring technology advances human rights and democratic values will matter more than ever. We’re deeply grateful to our Global and Europe Boards, our Advisory Council, the newly launched CDT Alumni Network, and the many partners and allies who join us in this work every day. We can’t do it without you.
With gratitude,