CDT’s Tech Talk is a podcast where we dish on tech and Internet policy, while also explaining what these policies mean to our daily lives. You can find Tech Talk on SoundCloud and on iTunes.
Are you ready for social media to curate your memorial service? Scrolling through my Facebook and Twitter feeds, I’m fairly certain I am not. Yet, this might be the future. In this episode of Tech Talk, talented multi-media artist Gabriel Barcia-Colombo talks about his recent exhbition on the Hereafter Life Institute and explains why digital legacy is an issue that he is exploring in his work.
We also talk about the headline grabbing DDoS attack that took out big swaths of the internet. The attackers leveraged the internet of things to carry out the mega attack. What does this mean for companies developing internet connected devices and what does it mean for the everyday consumer who is connecting everything they own to the internet? Michelle De Mooy answers these questions and more.
CDT Comment Welcomes NIST Effort to Develop Zero Draft
Drawing on CDT’s previous comments on this NIST effort and our prior research on documentation, our submission welcomes NIST’s effort to develop the zero draft, which provides a much-needed step toward more standardized, high-quality guidance on how developers of AI system components should document key properties and potential sources of AI risk. This guidance will be a valuable resource for organizations to improve interoperability, build more performant AI products, and more effectively identify and mitigate AI risks.
Coalition Urges Senate Not to Let Companies Waive Financial Regulations for AI
CDT joined AI Now Institute, American Civil Liberties Union, and several organizations dedicated to tech policy, consumer protection, and civil rights in a letter to Senate leadership and the Senate Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee opposing the “AI Innovation Labs” language in Sec. 10509 of the CLARITY Act.
As concern about risks and harms related to AI systems continue to grow, a growing chorus of policymakers, industry leaders, and advocates have called for independent AI assessments. This explainer provides an overview of recent proposals for third-party assessment in the United States, including state and federal legislation, executive actions, and industry proposals.
Having third parties assess AI systems might seem like common sense, but crafting effective policies toward this goal can be devilishly tricky. A poorly-constructed ecosystem for third-party assessment could easily fail to consider the most consequential mechanisms of risk, neglect the AI harms that most impact people, or do more to protect AI companies than people.
