How to Knock Out Super PACs with Lawrence Lessig
Kara talks to Lawrence Lessig about his fight to end Super PACs — without passing a constitutional amendment or overturning Citizens United.
The Harvard law professor and Equal Citizens founder was once the internet’s open-access evangelist. 19 years ago, he shifted his focus from intellectual property to institutional corruption, and since then, he’s become one of the country’s sharpest critics of money-driven politics.
Kara and Lessig examine how the tech industry shifted from being led by largely apolitical or "libertarian-light" figures to becoming a sector that actively enables Trump; whether Democrats can capitalize on the Epstein controversy to persuade Trump's voters that he’s not the outsider he claims to be; how engagement-driven AI is tearing democracy apart; and why citizen assemblies are the way to repair it.
Questions? Comments? Email us at on@voxmedia.com or find us on YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, Threads, and Bluesky @onwithkaraswisher.
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Governing democracy, the internet, and boardrooms
with @NoahRFeldman, @ahall_research, @rhhackett
Welcome to web3 with a16z. I'm Robert Hackett and today we have a special episode about governance in many forms — from nation states to corporate boards to internet services and beyond.
Our special guests are Noah Feldman, constitutional law scholar at Harvard who also architected the Meta oversight board (among many other things); he is also the author of several books. And our other special guest is Andy Hall, professor of political science at Stanford who is an advisor of a16z crypto research — and who also co-authored several papers and posts about web3 as a laboratory for designing and testing new political systems, including new work we'll link to in the shownotes.
Our hallway style conversation covers technologies and approaches to governance, from constitutions to crypto/ blockchains and DAOs. As such we also discuss content moderation and community standards; best practices for citizens assemblies; courts vs. legislatures; and much more where governance comes up.
Throughout, we reference the history and evolution of democracy — from Ancient Greece to the present day — as well as examples of governance from big companies like Meta, to startups like Anthropic.
Resources for references in this episode:
On the U.S. Supreme Court case NetChoice, LLC v. Paxton (Scotusblog)
On Meta's oversight board (Oversightboard.com)
On Anthropic's long term benefit trust (Anthropic, September 2023)
On "Boaty McBoatface" winning a boat-naming poll (Guardian, April 2016)
On Athenian democracy (World History Encyclopedia, April 2018)
The Three Lives of James Madison: Genius, Partisan, President by Noah Feldman (Random House, October 2017)
A selection of recent posts and papers by Andrew Hall:
The web3 governance lab: Using DAOs to study political institutions and behavior at scale by Andrew Hall and Eliza Oak (a16z crypto, June 2024)
DAO research: A roadmap for experimenting with governance by Andrew Hall and Eliza Oak (a16z crypto, June 2024)
The effects of retroactive rewards on participating in online governance by Andrew Hall and Eliza Oak (a16z crypto, June 2024)
Lightspeed Democracy: What web3 organizations can learn from the history of governance by Andrew Hall and Porter Smith (a16z crypto, June 2023)
What Kinds of Incentives Encourage Participation in Democracy? Evidence from a Massive Online Governance Experiment by Andrew Hall and Eliza Oak (working paper, November 2023)
Bringing decentralized governance to tech platforms with Andrew Hall (a16z crypto Youtube, July 2022)
The evolution of decentralized governance with Andrew Hall (a16z crypto Youtube, July 2022)
Toppling the Internet’s Accidental Monarchs: How to Design web3 Platform Governance by Porter Smith and Andrew Hall (a16z crypto, October 2022)
Paying People to Participate in Governance by Ethan Bueno de Mesquita and Andrew Hall (a16z crypto, November 2022)
As a reminder: none of the following should be taken as tax, business, legal, or investment advice. See a16zcrypto.com/disclosures for more important information, including a link to a list of our investments.
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Please note that the content here is for informational purposes only; should NOT be taken as legal, business, tax, or investment advice or be used to evaluate any investment or security; and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any a16z fund. a16z and its affiliates may maintain investments in the companies discussed. For more details please see a16z.com/disclosures.
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The Black Hole of Private Credit That's Swallowing the Economy
There's been a lot of talk about private credit in recent years. The market has exploded in size, and there are worries that it could be a bubble that eventually bursts and sparks disaster. But there are other negative effects from private credit that might already be happening. In a new paper called "The Credit Markets Go Dark," co-authors Harvard Law School professor Jared Ellias and Duke University School of Law professor Elisabeth de Fontenay argue that the $1.5 trillion market for private credit is already having a big impact on the economy — and not in a good way. They say that the rise of private credit marks a seismic change for corporate governance and dynamism.
Read More:
Odd Lots Newsletter: The Black Hole of Private Credit
Private Credit Pushes Deeper Into Risk That Wall Street Is Fleeing
Only Bloomberg.com subscribers can get the Odd Lots newsletter in their inbox each week, plus unlimited access to the site and app. Subscribe at bloomberg.com/subscriptions/oddlots
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What the Ex-OpenAI Safety Employees Are Worried About — With William Saunders and Lawrence Lessig
William Saunders is an ex-OpenAI Superallignment team member. Lawrence Lessig is a professor of Law and Leadership at Harvard Law School. The two come on to discuss what's troubling ex-OpenAI safety team members. We discuss whether the Saudners' former team saw something secret and damning inside OpenAI, or whether it was a general cultural issue. And then, we talk about the 'Right to Warn' a policy that would give AI insiders a right to share concerning developments with third parties without fear of reprisal. Tune in for a revealing look into the eye of a storm brewing in the AI community.
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Casey Goes to the White House + The Copyright Battle Over Artificial Intelligence + HatGPT
President Biden’s new executive order on artificial intelligence has a little bit of everything for everyone concerned about A.I. Casey takes us inside the White House as the order was signed.
Then, Rebecca Tushnet, a copyright law expert, walks us through the latest developments in a lawsuit against the creators of A.I.-image generation tools. She explains why artists may have trouble making the case that these tools infringe on their copyrights.
And finally, it’s time again for HatGPT. We get a taste of the tech headlines you may have missed from the week.
Today’s guest:
Rebecca Tushnet, professor of law at Harvard Law School.
Additional reading:
Casey’s debrief on his trip to the White House.
Kevin’s breakdown of the executive order.
A judge found many of the claims in a lawsuit against Stability AI, Midjourney and DeviantArt to be “defective.”
Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. You can also subscribe via your favorite podcast app here https://www.nytimes.com/activate-access/audio?source=podcatcher. For more podcasts and narrated articles, download The New York Times app at nytimes.com/app.
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Harvard professor Lawrence Lessig on why AI and social media are causing a free speech crisis for the internet
Today, I’m talking to internet policy legend Lawrence Lessig. He's been teaching law for more than 30 years, and is a defining expert on free speech and the internet — and something of a hero of mine, whose works I've been reading since college.
You’ll hear us agree that the internet at this moment in time is absolutely flooded with disinformation, misinformation, and other really toxic stuff that’s harmful to us as individuals and, frankly, to our future as a functioning democracy. But you’ll also hear us disagree a fair amount about what to do about it. The First Amendment, AI, copyright law — there's a lot to unpack here.
Links:
https://asml.cyber.harvard.edu/
https://www.technologyreview.com/2023/10/17/1081194/how-to-fix-the-internet-online-discourse/
https://www.protocol.com/facebook-papers
https://www.tiktok.com/@aocinthehouse/video/7214318917135830318?lang=en
https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/sensitive-claims-bias-facebook-relaxed-misinformation-rules-conservative-pages-n1236182
https://bigthink.com/neuropsych/repetition-lie-truth-propaganda/
https://www.theverge.com/23883027/alvarez-stolen-valor-first-amendment-kosseff-liar-crowded-theater
https://fortune.com/2023/05/30/sam-altman-ai-risk-of-extinction-pandemics-nuclear-warfare/
https://www.americanbar.org/groups/intellectual_property_law/publications/landslide/2019-20/september-october/into-fandomverse/
Transcript: https://www.theverge.com/e/23693274
Credits:
Decoder is a production of The Verge and is part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
Today’s episode was produced by Kate Cox and Nick Statt. It was edited by Callie Wright.
The Decoder music is by Breakmaster Cylinder. Our Executive Producer is Eleanor Donovan.
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The Motivations of Facebook Whistleblower Frances Haugen — With Her Lawyer Lawrence Lessig
Lawrence Lessig is Frances Haguen's lawyer and a Harvard Law School professor. He joins Big Technology Podcast to address the various questions about Haugen's motivations, backers, and intent that have percolated since she came forward. We start by addressing whether the the leaked documents should be available to all and move into the conspiracies about her. A lively discussion follows.
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Fixing America’s internet, with Susan Crawford
Harvard Law School professor Susan Crawford explains how America’s internet connectivity issues and corrosive infrastructure are holding the country back and how we can rally to fix it. She and Verge editor-in-chief Nilay Patel also discuss the Huawei scandal, politicians' roles in improving broadband internet, and her new book Fiber: The Coming Tech Revolution—and Why America Might Miss It.
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