Stay ConnectedWhat’s happening on the frontlines of tech? Tune in for a zippy conversation about emerging technology hosted by industry veteran Niki Christoff. From the C-Suite and Capitol Hill to AI and crypto, quantum computing to the decentralized internet, Niki breaks down the trends in tech to help savvy listeners get even smarter. Guests include experts, enthusiasts, regulators, policymakers, CEOs, and reporters.
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Co-founder of Tezos, one of the first blockchains, Kathleen Breitman joins Niki from London to tell the story of the network she founded and her commitment to democratic governance in crypto. She also shares her thoughts on the risks of building a business dependent on a charismatic leader.
"Cryptocurrencies allow for something very unique to happen that we've been trying to solve for hundreds of years." -Kathleen Breitman
CEO of Equal AI and White House technology advisor, Miriam Vogel, joins Niki in the studio to discuss her work to reduce algorithmic bias in the deployment of artificial intelligence. In this episode, Miriam explains why this is a critical moment to make sure we are using AI as a solution to increase fairness and build trust, and not as a scaling function for harms that already exist.
“We have this critical moment here where we can take safeguards and make sure that we are using AI as a solution and not as a scaling function for harm.” -Miriam Vogel
Venture capitalist and AgTech (aka agriculture technology) investor, Connie Bowen, is raising capital to help fix some of the toughest challenges facing food systems and farming. She has some straight talk for Silicon Valley investors who are pouring money into agri-farm tech that just isn’t going to work.
"I think you’ll see a lot of venture capitalists investing in robots that are gonna fully automate farming, and that's not going to work. That is my hot take." -Connie Bowen
Bumble's Americas public policy lead Payton Iheme joins Niki Christoff in the studio to discuss the company campaign to criminalize cyberflashing. More than half of women between 18-24 years old have received an unwanted, unsolicited lewd digital image, but that behavior is only illegal in two states. In-person flashing is a crime in all 50 states and it's time for laws to update to protect the digital world too.
"The internet is the economic driver of our generation and it will be going forward. Why should a large percentage of the human population have one experience on it and the others have another? " -Payton Iheme
New York Times technology reporter, Kate Conger, covers social media and the gig economy based in Silicon Valley. She joins Niki in the studio in D.C. at the height of the Twitter drama to discuss what’s going on with Elon Musk, his bid to buy the social media platform, and what it’s like to report on tech during high-stakes moments.
"...we're talking about sort of an ideological shift for the business and also a financial shift and a business shift." -Kate Conger
Former FBI agent, Jennifer Vander Veer, now runs product strategy at TRM Labs. She joins Niki to discuss what it was like to be one of the first cops on the digital currency beat, how criminals think about emerging technology, and separating fact from fiction when it comes to information retained on distributed ledgers. She believes that blockchain technology could ultimately lead to a safer financial system.
“If you want crypto to become adopted fully and mainstream, you're going to have to have the kind of security and regulations and risk mitigation in place that the rest of the financial sector has.” -Jennifer Vander Veer
President of General Dynamics Information Technology, Amy Gilliland, is now the president of General Dynamics Information Technology. Having served for a decade as a U.S. Navy officer, Amy joins Niki in the studio to discuss her passion for mission-oriented tech. Her leadership is focused on hiring veterans, building cool tools with AI and high-performance computing, and focusing on employee mental health. She always asks, “How are you...really?”
"Why do we come to work? Why do we do what we do? The mission…does excite employees. And to that extent, they can understand that it's pretty cool, cutting edge technology that we are working on." -Amy Gilliland
Author and academic, Dr. Nirit Weiss-Blatt, Ph.D, applies AI modeling to analyze large data sets of tech coverage to answer the question: Why is there a backlash gainst Big Tech and is their comms strategy working? Her first book, The Techlash and Tech Crisis Communication, chronicles how mainstream coverage of the tech industry shifted from a long period of utopianism to our current state of dystopianism.
"We've been over utopian, but we are clearly over-dystopian now. And we should seek a more nuanced discussion." - Dr. Nirit Weiss-Blatt
AI enthusiast and founder of SeedAI, Austin Carson, started a non-profit to get artificial intelligence projects launched in new and diverse communities across America. We talk about “machines thinking for themselves,” bias in code (and in the world), and Austin finally answers the burning question: Are our computers eavesdropping?
"Just like we are, it (the internet) aggregates our good things and aggregates our bad things and that lays us kind of bare in front of ourselves in the world." -Austin Carson
Attorney Chris Grieco is General Counsel for a crypto startup that has created a stablecoin protocol. An alumnus of the Department of Justice, White House Counsel's office, and a former federal prosecutor, Chris knows his way around the corridors of Washington. In this episode, he joins Niki at the Tech'ed Up studio to explore the concepts of stablecoins, a digital dollar, and "decentralized finance" AKA DeFi.
"…another kind of theme of crypto, I think, is that people don't necessarily take your word for anything, you, y’know, have to be able to prove it on the blockchain." Chris Grieco
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