Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
George Justice (00:01):
What's the
alternative to that, frankly,
scary way of letting thetechnology take care of itself?
Frank Pasquale (00:08):
If we were to
create a world where the stuff
created by generative AI is allof the data out there or
majority of it, that would leadto model collapse because the
human data is what's really ofgreat value.
George Justice (00:23):
Hello, everyone.
My name is George Justice, and
I'm joined by Frank Pasqualetoday to talk about David
Columbia's cyber libertarianism,the right wing politics of
digital technology, published bythe University of Minnesota
Press. Frank, why don't youintroduce yourself, who you are,
(00:44):
and then I'll say a few wordsand and then ask you some
questions.
Frank Pasquale (00:48):
Oh, thanks so
much, George. It's really a
pleasure to be in conversationwith you. I know how much your
insight and friendship meant toDavid, throughout. And I wanted
to introduce myself. I am aprofessor of law at Cornell Law
School and Cornell Tech.
I'm based in New York City. Ihave worked on issues of law and
technology for a while. That ledme to, get to know David. I
(01:11):
believe we first met at aprivacy conference. And, over
that time period, you know,since I met him probably ten
years ago, I got to know hiswork very well and was in
correspondence with him and,just find him to have been a
tremendous scholar.
George Justice (01:25):
And as our
listeners may or may not know,
David Columbia, a great friendof mine since 1988, died on
09/14/2023. It's such aprivilege to have you here
today, Frank, to talk over cyberlibertarianism, which I consider
to be David's magnum opus. I'mmyself, I'm a professor of
(01:48):
English literature and serve asprovost at the University of
Tulsa in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Davidwas one of my closest friends
since we met on the first day ofgraduate school at the
University of Pennsylvania in1988. It has just been a really
important thing for me to beable to work with the press, the
(02:08):
outstanding work by theUniversity of Minnesota Press to
bring to life David's final bookcontaining his best thoughts and
his most deep ideas about what'shappening in our world, thought
very, very broadly.
And, Frank, let me let me kickthings off with a question about
our contemporary world here inthe fall of twenty twenty four.
(02:31):
Deeply going through the editingprocess with David's book at the
same time that the presidentialcampaign has been unfolding,
I've noticed, both explicitlinks, let's say, between, the
Republican vice presidentialcandidate and some of the themes
and specific ideas that come upin David's book. Have you seen
(02:56):
those, similarities? And goingfurther, would you expect a
Trump administration to carryout some of the things that
David warns about in cyberlibertarianism?
Frank Pasquale (03:09):
Oh, thanks,
George. And I do think that's a
very interesting question, andit's it's a fascinating question
on a few levels. One is just tointroduce what I take to be the
core ideas of cyberlibertarianism. I think it's the
idea that the cyber libertarianbelieves that technology is
(03:30):
going to lead to tremendousadvances in human well-being and
that because this golden goose,this sort of Promethean gift of
technology is so great in itspotential, we should be
extremely cautious and skepticalof any efforts to regulate it.
Right?
Now thinking about the Trumpadministration one point o from
(03:54):
2017 to 2021, thatadministration, I think, had a
somewhat mixed record ontechnology. I mean, it served on
some level. It was pro tech inits general deregulatory
emphasis. It was anti tech insome of its antitrust actions,
you know, which the case againstGoogle, began in the Trump
administration. So it was Ithought it was a bit of a mixed
(04:16):
bag.
But I think what's fascinatingin terms of the consolidation of
Silicon Valley support behindTrump and now Vance in 2024 is
that I would expect, just asyour question suggests, there
would be a lot of protectactivity in a Trump Vance
administration. And I think thatcomes down to things like
crypto, which, has was thesubject of, I think, David's
(04:40):
first book or, no, second book.David's second book was, called
Bitcoin Software's Right WingExtremism. And this is a book
just to go on a little tangent,but I think it's really helpful
to sort of get a sense of, youknow, where David was coming
from and how prescient he couldbe. The Bitcoin book came out in
2016.
And at that time, there were somany people that were so deeply
enthusiastic aboutcryptocurrency and about
(05:02):
particularly the blockchain asbeing this liberatory,
emancipatory aspect oftechnology that would allow us
to tear down old hierarchies andto decentralize our existence in
a way that would, you know,really be liberatory and and and
be be, progressive. And Davidcame into that sort of status
(05:23):
quo, those received ideas, andjust said absolutely not. So,
you know, if you reallyunderstand the foundations of
what's going on in crypto, thatit was this, the original, a
document from Satoshi Nakamoto,who's the sort of the
cryptonymous, founder, referredto the financial crash and was
(05:45):
in a way trying to either takeadvantage of it or at least to,
you know, if not stoke, takeadvantage of a panic over fiat
currency, the governments. AndDavid sort of built on that to
look into the deep history ofthose who tried to get outside
of the monetary system, of theof the state driven monetary
system into this sort of privatecrypto system. And in doing so,
(06:07):
really illuminated a lot of theenergy and momentum now that we
see in a big crypto backing ofTrump advance.
And so therefore you know? Andthey they have been very upset
about, like, Gary Gensler, who Ithink has been doing a
relatively a good job, but, youknow, a pretty modest regulatory
agenda on what's really becomein many ways a wild west space.
(06:29):
But to them, it is just seen asbeing utterly, you know, too
dare jeez, authoritarian,etcetera. And I think that in
that hyperbole of antiregulatory movements that David
traced way back in his cryptobook and and also in the present
cyber libertarianism, you see inthat hyperbole the roots of a
(06:51):
cyber libertarian emerginggoverning ideology that at its
most extreme extent would takeon, I think, all of the ideas in
the recent techno optimistmanifesto, by Marc Andreasson,
which, you know, has has has aton of ideas that are just
really trying to say that thethe regulatory infrastructure is
(07:12):
the enemy of progress. And so II I'm sorry for that very long
answer, but I think it's it's avery rich question.
Yeah.
George Justice (07:19):
And I I noticed
that Vance himself has been a
reader of the works of, CurtisYarvin, Menckheus Moldbug, if
I'm pronouncing that correctly,as David, outlines his strange
work in cyber libertarianism.Vance himself, who was, of
course, been supported by PeterThiel, one of those, Silicon
(07:41):
Valley, cyber libertarians.Vance has actually been brought
up within the ideological stewof some of the thinkers that, if
you wanna call them thinkers,that David takes to task in
cyber libertarianism. I'mthinking of sort of three d's
that came up in your remarks,Frank. Deregulation,
decentralization, and the senseof technological determinism
(08:07):
that the technology, and we'llget into this later, that the
technology is driving towardsparticular aims.
With the we'll talk about themetaphor of the printing press
and, the kind ofmisunderstanding of historical
analysis of the history of theprinting press that many of the
cyber libertarians have adopted.And so figures like Elon Musk,
(08:30):
who may have said he was gonna,support Democrats four years
ago, maybe not, has come outvery strongly now for Donald
Trump. I'm also struck by inDavid's book, and I this is a a
curiosity I have. David, in hislife and in his writing, is
fearless about taking oninterests and taking on people
(08:55):
who even would seem to be alliedwith him. As an aside, I
remember in graduate seminars,and, you know, we're all pretty
similar thinkers in English PhDprograms, the knock down drag
out fights we'd have even inseminars on Renaissance
literature.
He had a a really strong bent inhis life not to go along to get
(09:20):
along, so to speak. And thereare some self described or at
least widely understoodprogressive thinkers whom he
takes to task in cyberlibertarianism, legal scholars
like Tim Wu and Lawrence Lessig.You're a law professor, which
I'm not. Does his his takingthose people to task make sense
(09:41):
to you, or is he overreading?Because he seems to sort of
analyze some of their writingsas believing in things that they
themselves might not personallysay that they believe in.
Frank Pasquale (09:55):
Yeah. I mean,
it's a very complex question,
you know, with respect to theengagement with different
figures. And I I think Imentioned to David once, you
know, in terms of thinkingabout, it was a past project,
just saying, you know, maybeit's it's better to just go
after narrow beliefs of peoplerather than sort of suggesting
that the person themselves mightbe have a certain ideology on
(10:16):
the basis of disagreement. But II mean, I think with respect to,
you know let me just talkconcretely about both of the I
think you mentioned, LarryLessig and Tim Wu. I mean, Larry
Lessig is someone that I thinkthis is something that has now
been noted about intellectualproperty as a political matter
that I think is reallyimportant.
So Lesson begins his career withthis or at least comes to
(10:37):
prominence with this book calledCode and Other Laws of
Cyberspace, where essentiallythe idea is that he's worried
that computer code is going totake on this somewhat
authoritarian role in terms ofcontrolling people's access to
information, particularlycontrolling their access to
intellectual property. And hebecame part of a movement of,
say, open access persons thatwanted to say, really, IP, we
(11:00):
need to fight things like therecording industry, fight, big
publishers, try to make thingsfree so that things are
available for free online. Okay?And and I think at the time, it
didn't strike many as a veryprogressive movement. You know?
There were there Disney waspushing to extend the copyright
term by another twenty years,and, you know, Lessig was
fighting against that, etcetera.But what was interesting was
(11:22):
that as someone like Lessigbegan to articulate a larger
vision of the nature of valueand labor in the digital
economy, then what startedhappening is, you know, he would
make analogies, and this is onethat I've taken a test on, that
would say things like, well,Google may be trying to copy all
the books in the world or it maybe copying all the websites. But
(11:42):
couldn't we think of Google asthe painter and the websites and
the books as the paint? And, youknow, isn't the painter, the
picture worth more than thepaint? You know, and things like
that.
And and and just sort of playplaying with those sort of
metaphors, and I startedthinking, that's a really bad
metaphor because, you know,because I just sort of feel like
there's a lot of thought goinginto this, You know, any
(12:05):
particular piece of ofinformation online, it reminds
me also of someone I think HalVarian once said that, you know,
there's been more informationcreated in the last two years,
and this was done in theFebruary or something, than has
been ever created in the historyof human history. And it's like,
you know, I know I'm workingquantify things in those way.
You know? So I feel like thatsort of is, and and, of course,
(12:25):
that plays out now, inintellectual property battles,
which we'll get to later in ourconversation. But, you know,
that's one part of it.
Just to finish up with Lessig, Ido think that Lessig in his anti
corruption work one thing that'sreally fascinating about Lessig
is he made a point at some pointwhere he said, I think scholars
should declare intellectualbankruptcy after a decade and
say they've said enough aboutone topic and move into another.
(12:46):
And he stopped talking aboutintellectual property by and
large. He started becoming anticorruption activists and
advocate. And, you know, thatclearly is incredibly important
work. So, you know, that's bravoto to learn lesson for that.
Tim Wu, you know, did work onnet neutrality, became was sort
of like seen as the thegodfather of that term or sort
of originator of that term. And,you know, I think that David
(13:10):
advances in cyber libertarianisma very complex argument about
what the press for netneutrality misses in terms of
the larger digital ecosystem,whereby if you are just a net
neutrality activist, you wannamake sure that your telephone
carrier or cable carrier can'tdiscriminate against certain,
(13:33):
content because you wanna reducetheir power. But if you are a
critical Internet studiesscholar, you see that, like,
maybe this is just a battleamong big giant companies. And,
like, do I really have a dog onthis spot? Fight?
Right? That was sort of, Ithink, where David was going
with that. But I think, again,with someone like Tim Wu, I
think that, you know, by bylater debates on net neutrality,
he did get that. But moreover,you know, he certainly has been
(13:56):
this this very key figure interms of, like, fighting
corporate power in the Bidenadministration. He was one of
the architects of Biden'scompetition policy.
So, you know, as I sort of feellike there's there's a way in
which David, as as you state,when he sees a position of
someone can be very focused onthat position. And I think that
(14:18):
there might be a certainepistemic justice in saying,
well, in any of these papersthat's criticized, always
consider their broader theirtheir broader affiliations and
what they work on. Yeah.
George Justice (14:28):
I see that, and,
I would endorse what you would
say because it it also ringstrue to him as a person. He got
very dogged about how he couldpursue an argument to its very
end. On the other hand, thatyields in terms when it's not
tied to individual human beingswho may have different thoughts
(14:48):
one way or another. But when itgets tied to ideas, that kind of
relentlessness, as you were justsaying about net neutrality, it
really yields, at least to me,new insight into the topic. So I
was somebody who kind of naivelybought the arguments about net
neutrality.
Yeah. The arguments that Davidassociates with cyber
(15:09):
libertarianism. Similarly, withfree software. Well, it sounds
really good, and David talksabout the aphorism free
software, not as in, free beer,but as in free liberty. But
undercutting the kind ofpretentious claims to large
(15:29):
scale positive social changethat comes out of these
movements.
I mean, I admit I use Wikipediaon a regular basis. David goes
to town on Wikipedia. And I cansee the pros and cons and, you
know, the editorial structure isnot a great open structure as
Jimmy Wales may see. But if youactually look at the the way
(15:52):
that editors, kind of guardjealously guard their privilege
within that system, and in someways, on an even more profound
basis because, I mean, Iwouldn't go to Wikipedia for
anything more than understandingwhen Katy Perry was born and
what her career has looked likeon a surface level. But he goes
after Julian Assange, who isdefinitely not a good guy.
(16:14):
And yet, he seems to associatethe very negative aspects of
character of Julian Assange witha condemnation entirely of
WikiLeaks. It brings up abroader question to me, which
I'd like to get to in the courseof our conversation about
democracy and the government. SoAssange breaks the law and is
(16:40):
not a good guy on top of that.And therefore, according to
David, the WikiLeaks leaks arein fact provided in
contradiction to democraticgovernance. There are times in
the book that, it's a verypowerful gesture that the
(17:00):
regulation of these spaces bythe government is in fact a
perfect embodiment of democracybecause we live in a system in
which we vote for thegovernment.
The government directly respondsto us as active citizens within
a democratically conceivednation. And yet at the same
time, I'm personally glad thatWikiLeaks brought to light some
(17:25):
of our government actions. Iwonder if you have any thoughts
about what I see as, David'sbringing together in ways that
are both powerful but may not godirectly everywhere we wanna go
of identifying the governmentwith democracy. How does that
play out? And do you think,particularly in the case of
(17:47):
WikiLeaks, how do you how do youunderstand the the role of
WikiLeaks within our world overthe past fifteen years?
Frank Pasquale (17:55):
Yeah. This is a
really good question. I think
that and I I particularlyappreciate your bringing
together the Wiki pedia andWikiLeaks phenomena. And let me
maybe I'll start with WikiLeaks.One of the things that
fascinated me about WikiLeaks atthe very beginning was where is
the Julian Assange of Russia orChina?
Right? So if we were sort ofshift from a just shift from the
(18:19):
perspective of a domesticperspective of I wanna see bad
things that the US governmenthas done exposed to the world,
yes. You know, there's a certainpositive angle to that. But if
we shift to a geopoliticalperspective and say, well, if
there's no similar figure inRussia or China, you know, then
(18:41):
maybe you start wondering, like,is our openness being weaponized
against us in that way? And Ithink that was something, you
know, I would sometimes discusswith with, David about that sort
of, like, thinking about theoverarching normative import.
One thing I found absolutelyfascinating recently is I have
heard reports that, actually,Iran has, hacked Donald Trump's
(19:03):
campaign, but media are nottalking about it. So I don't
know. I can't verify that, but Ithink they've said, well, we
learned from 2016. We're gonnastop, you know, talking about
these sort of hacks or thingslike that. So you know?
And and then again, there'sanother asymmetry, right, where
you could say, oh, well, I guessthey've learned their lesson.
But then on the other hand, it'slike, well, somehow but that
lesson ended up really helpingone side of the political
(19:24):
spectrum, protecting another. Sothat's one side. Yeah. You know,
this this, this dilemma.
And I think another side of itwith respect to Wiki Wikipedia
is that I think there have beeninteresting studies sort of
saying, like, what is the powerexercised by the Wikipedia
(19:46):
editors? How is this groupdeveloping? What are its
emphases? If you compare it totraditional encyclopedia, what's
the nature of its emphasisversus non emphasis? And
finally, is it doing labor thatought to be compensated?
Right? And that's another areawhere, you know, to come back,
(20:08):
this will be, I think, a threadof our conversation where at
first, open access looked like,you you know, if you want to be
sort of an anti copyright or acopyleft, type of position, that
has many progressive aspects ofit. I mean, Ju and Chang has
written brilliantly about howlimiting copyright protection
has allowed, or at least waysaround it have allowed very
(20:30):
important materials to get todeveloping countries. But on the
other hand, if you take anabsolutist position about it,
then it looks like what anappropriation of the labor that
goes into not only the writingof books, but the editing, all
the other aspects, the editing,promotion, aspects of of of
creating an intellectualecosystem. And so to me, you
(20:51):
know, that is part of maybe anaspect of the cyber
libertarianism of of David'sColumbia's cyber libertarianism
book critique of of ofWikipedia.
And also, yeah, just just theidea of, like, I've definitely
seen concerns about there notbeing a representative group of
people that's editing it in aworld where information is not
(21:14):
simply being used to help edifypeople, but also there are
information wars. You know,there are information there are
battles over narrative. Thereare battles over different you
know, how different events arerepresented. And if that's the
case, then if you have this sortof, like, massive website that
may have certain hidden agendasthat are very hard to reveal
given its structure, given, youknow, anonymity of, you know,
(21:35):
certain editors, whatever itmight be, that might be a
concern, you know, that one onewould have. And so, yeah, I
think that you're right to sayto note the double edgedness of
this because we wantwhistleblowers to be able to
report out problems.
We want there to be a publicwebsite that has immense amounts
of information, well organizedin an accessible way. But we
(21:58):
have to be cognizant of theproblems that David recognizes
with respect to the potentialhidden agendas or biased agendas
of those sort of entities.
George Justice (22:07):
Well, in open
access, free software,
transparency, which is anotherword that David unpacks the use
of in cyber libertarian, dogma.Of course, we're all for
transparency, But in many cases,the way that some of the
corporate interests and thethinkers behind the corporate
(22:28):
interests look at transparency,it is utterly a violation of
privacy, of copyright, of rightsof the individual as we have
typically understood them. Howdo you see the the relationship
between transparency and privacyplaying out in the book's
(22:50):
arguments, but also in the waythat our culture is developing.
And I know you're an expert onAI, and it's been shocking to me
the ways in which some of thethings you just said about
Wikipedia get ramped up in AI,which, you know, reflects the
combination of informationthat's brought into it.
Sometimes that information notbeing brought into it with the
(23:12):
will of the people who actuallycreated, created the words.
The cyber libertarians trumpettransparency as an ultimate
goal. And yet how doestransparency get in the way of
other values that we might holddear in a democratic government?
Frank Pasquale (23:31):
Terrific
question. And just to to start
and answer, I'll make it reallyconcrete, which is, there was a
proposal actually by a legalscholar who later played a role
in the Trump administration,that you would have complete
transparency as to what alladministrators in the
administrative state were doing.You could have, video cameras at
(23:51):
their desk. You could havereports out. Yeah.
Right. You know, video camerasat their desk, reports out as to
what every email that they sentfrom their work computer was.
You know, imagine, like, a superFOIA that would be not only is
there sort of an orderly processof releasing documents, but it's
just a big dump of all the datathat happened on any government
computer any day, and nogovernment business could be
transacted except in that way.Now, of course, that's sort of,
(24:14):
you know, that's a reductio adabsurdum. But even, you know,
some of the some more commondemands for transparency have
been critiqued by legalscholars.
Like David Posen of Columbia haswritten a great article called
Transparency's IdeologicalDrift. And he's saying in that
article that, you know, in thesixties, there were a lot of
progressive activists that were,like, saying, we wanna make big
(24:36):
government more transparent. Butnowadays, there are a lot of
individuals that are trying tomake the demand for transparency
or weaponize it to discreditordinary governmental
functioning. Imagine, forexample, again, like in a vote
counting context, know, someonesays, I wanna know the names and
addresses and phone numbers ofall poll workers in a given
(24:57):
area. I wanna publish that foreverybody.
Right? Now on the one hand,maybe it's good that we know who
all the poll workers are. On theother hand, given the rise of
stochastic terrorism, it'spretty terrifying. Right? And I
don't think you'll have manypeople that wanna sign up for it
if they know that that's gonnabe the price the price of
transparency, you know, thatthey're gonna have to bear
burden be burdened with.
(25:18):
So I think that's yet anothervery smart interrogation by
David of a term that, you know,from the outside could be seen
as entirely a positive. Right?And I'll also note that, like,
in this, he he stands in veryinteresting ideological
footsteps or or philosophicalfootsteps. I think there's a
(25:38):
book by Stefano Sherallanescalled Transparency in French
Thought that looks at sort ofthe history of French
philosophers and theoristsquestioning transparency. I
mean, there's work on, fouropacity.
So you know, you have a lot ofpeople that are working in this
field, and I think David is, youknow, really emphasizing and
dramatizing the problem oftaking on transparency as a a
(26:01):
all important value when it'snot balanced by concern for
privacy, concern for,administrative burden, and other
things like that.
George Justice (26:14):
And what are the
ways that we do that balancing?
So from a from a cyberlibertarian perspective, it'll
all take care of itself becausetechnology is gonna fix it for
us. What's the alternative tothat, kinda to me, frankly,
scary way of kind of letting thetechnology take care of itself.
(26:34):
How do we do that balancingbetween legitimate, wish for
transparency in public actionstaken on behalf of or by the
government versus legitimatereasons why transactions, and
information might be keptprivate? How do we come to the
(26:56):
right balance, to use your word?
Frank Pasquale (26:59):
Yes. It's a
terrific question, and I think
that it really gets to a corephilosophical contribution of
David and something that I wasin conversation with him, you
know, for for many years in theOctober, which was about the the
concept of judgment. Right? So Ithink there are ways of
conceiving knowledge that wouldsay and I think this is deeply
embedded in cyber libertarianthought, in terms of if it has
(27:22):
an epistemology. I would saythat algorithms, computers,
computation, and quantificationare the only paths to reliable
knowledge of the world, right,versus judgment.
Right? And judgment is going toinvolve sometimes narrative
modes, more reflectivequalitative modes of inquiry
that would do things like say,well, we're going to consider
(27:44):
the balance of interests oneither side with respect to how
much transparency do we demandand how much capacity do we
permit to say, givengovernmental authorities or
others. I recently was reading awonderful article that was about
different political legislativecompromises over video cameras
in nursing homes. Right? So dowe allow one version of complete
(28:07):
transparency would say we willvideo camera everything that
happens in a nursing home tomake sure that anyone
responsible for a breach ofpatient safety is recorded and
held accountable.
But that also is reallyviolative of people's privacy,
not least the people living inthe nursing home. Right? And so
so we have to we have to sort ofthink about, you know, when is
it reasonable? Like, do we havecontrols where someone can turn
(28:29):
it off? The person who's in theroom, who's the resident, could
turn it off at any time versusthe person who's, say, working
there could turn it off withpermission or with the right
justification or something alongthose lines.
Those are the sorts of thingsthat I think are these judgments
where we reason together about aproblem from a diverse array of
normative authorities andguidelines that we may we may
(28:51):
draw from the humanities, fromphilosophy, from social science.
That sort of judgment, I think,is critical. And a lot of, and I
think David is recognizes that.And and I think at its best, his
work exemplifies that type ofjudgment where he's calling for
those types of reasoningtogether in a political context
(29:15):
that is never gonna be reducibleto an algorithm, but which
nevertheless is trying to, in acontext sensitive way, do
justice to the rival claims ofof individuals in a in a given
setting.
George Justice (29:28):
I love that. I
also love it as an English
professor because I think theway you've described your
conversations with him and thisfocus on judgment as stemming
pretty directly from his owndeep commitment to the
humanities. There isn't a lot ofliterature or literary criticism
that shows up in cyberlibertarianism. But for me,
(29:49):
especially in the final chaptersof the book, the sensitivity to
rhetoric, the complexity ofunderstanding a situation in the
world that you might get fromreading novels, and David was a
gigantic reader of novels,that's what allows us to kind
of, hone our skills in judgmentwhen we understand the world in,
(30:13):
analog complexity rather than akind of digital back and forth
leading to an algorithm makingdecisions. And I I think that's
beautiful, and I think it alsopoints to the very direct and,
powerful rhetoric of the bookitself.
Because it is a book that isdeeply humane, deeply focused on
(30:35):
human beings coming together toto build, judgment. So I that
rings so so true to me, aboutthings. I wanna talk about,
copyright. And David does agreat job of exposing, in terms
of the printing press. Andwithout the printing press, we
(30:55):
wouldn't have the notion ofcopyright that we have now.
The way that, cyber libertariansmisunderstand even scholars of,
the history of print, and try toturn them all into technological
determinists. But the notion ofcopyright. And even in the
history of the way writers havethought about copyright, there
(31:19):
is this tension between absolutecopyright, an author owns her or
his words for all time and toevery extent. And the actual
laws begun in England in theeighteenth century that limit
copyright initially to one sevenyear term and then a subsequent
(31:40):
seven year term. Cyberlibertarians also take an
absolutist view of copyright by,suggesting it shouldn't exist.
David seems to defend copyright.How do you see copyright as, an
element that that playscentrally into the book and into
ideas we have about what theInternet is and should be?
Frank Pasquale (32:04):
Yeah. This is a
really fascinating area where I
think David was ahead of histime. And I should note that,
you know, like, the we mentionedearlier about net neutrality
there. I'm I have always been anet neutrality fan, and I still
am. You know, David and I sortof, like, beg to differ on that.
Yeah. And and, actually, what'skind of funny is early in my
career, I was also I took apretty skeptical copyright
(32:27):
position. I've written article.I wrote articles in the early
two thousands, mid '2 thousandsthat were about sort of saying,
wow. Copyright seems that it'sit's gone too far, and we need
to create more breathing spacefor creativity with fair use,
things like that.
Yeah. But then as I, you know,was talking with David and then
as I I've I've been observingdifferent things have been
(32:47):
happening. What's fascinating tome is that particularly with the
rise of generative AI, there'sbeen a raising of consciousness
among creators who seethemselves as being exploited by
free appropriation of theirworks. Right? And so this is a
this is a fascinating issuebecause I think for a lot of
(33:08):
people that are that write aboutcopyright, they began with it,
serve with the battles of therecording industry against
individual downloaders, whichwere very troubling.
Right? I mean, they're sort ofwatching someone being sued for
a hundred thousand dollars for,you know, downloading 10 songs.
That's really troubling to sortof see if that could happen. But
(33:29):
then, you know, if we were tothink that, like, we've gotta
complement that with a currentsituation where you have
companies that are worthbillions of dollars who have
three ingredients for thegenerative AI. They have
engineers who are brilliant.
They have important computingmachinery from companies like
NVIDIA, the chips, etcetera. Andthey have the data, which is
often books, texts, music, art,etcetera. They wanna they pay
(33:53):
the for their computingequipment a ton. They pay their
engineers quite well, but theywanna get all the data, all the
books, all the rest for free.Right?
And and that strikes a lot ofpeople. It rubs a lot of people
the wrong way. And and so that'swhere David, I think, had this
skepticism brewing even in thein the twenty tens about the
relationship between a projectlike Google Books and those who,
(34:15):
you know, are are selling booksor publishing books and writing
books. And that has now become amovement of people like there's
a movement now called hashtagcreate don't scrape, which
basically the idea of this isit's artists who are saying,
don't use generative AI. Youshould be paying artists for the
images you wanna use because ourwork is what trained the AI.
(34:38):
We are not getting anything fromit, and that's an injustice.
Right? And and that, I think, isis something that rang really
that that you it's it's and thenDavid, by going deep into the
movement, I think what Davidwould say is that the original,
say, open access movement alwayshad within it the seeds of this
(35:00):
possibility of a deep asymmetrythat has now become a very hot
political issue. And and I Ithink I I I think I might be a
little gentler with them. Imean, I think that particularly
if you connect some of the IPopen access IP to some of the
fights for, say, access accessto drugs, especially for the
developing world, you know, thatwas those were clear social
(35:20):
justice movements.
Right? But I think that, youknow, we've got to complicate
it, as David does, by thecurrent scenario of really
wealthy tech firms sort of,assuming that they should have
free and open ability to traintheir models that and this is
where it's also a game changer.These models are poised to take
on the role of writers and of,artists and of others. Right?
(35:45):
And that's that's what's verydifferent against versus piracy.
Piracy, you've got to at leasthave somebody who creates the
original book. With generativeAI, you could imagine a future
where the generative AI is justwriting books, novels, books of
theory, the you know, all thesesorts of things. And that is
troubling if there's no, sort ofway of, of making sure that
(36:07):
there's a body of work that itcan train on. And the last point
I'll make is that what's evenmore remarkable, I think, in
terms of the the overarchingnormative impact of David's
critique of, a cyber libertarianapproach to copyright is that
now even the developers ofgenerative AI are saying if we
(36:28):
were to create a world where ourstuff, the stuff created by
generative AI, is all of thedata out there or majority of
it, that would lead to modelcollapse because the the human
data is what's really of greatvalue here. And that and and and
its own data, you couldn't trainfuture models on what past
models have done.
(36:48):
You need the original humanstuff. And so that, I think, is
is really an interesting sort ofidea as well. But sorry to get a
bit carried away there, but Ijust think there's such exciting
ideas about seeing these shifts,in ideological valence of things
like copyright.
George Justice (37:02):
I mean, that's
crazy stuff. Let me just ask
you. Per on a personal level, doyou mind your own written works
being mined for, generative AI?Would you assert your copyright
against the use of those piecesto train AI? Are you okay with
it?
Frank Pasquale (37:21):
You know, it's a
I think I acquiesce to it
because I think that it'spossible that these chatbots
will become as important assearch engines are now to the
organization and prioritizationof knowledge. And particularly,
it's not that I necessarilythink that my own work is so
important that it needs to beincluded, but I grapple with and
(37:45):
try to advance the thought ofpeople like Charles Taylor,
Hannah Arendt, Hubert Dreyfus,some of these, like, really, I
think, very deeply importantthinkers in philosophy of
technology and philosophy ofdemocracy in my own work. And I
worry that if I withhold my workfrom the database, that in turn
(38:08):
impoverishes what may become aninformation tool for many
people. And so that's where, youknow, you need, like and this
gets even to another Colombianpoint if I could make it. You
know, David Colombian point,which would be that you need to
have because these sorts ofhyperobjects even, these sort
of, like, very massive sociotechnical apparatuses of
(38:29):
knowledge production have thepotential of playing such an
important role in our lives,that leaves you with if if it's
just about individuals, thatleaves me with the Hobson's
choice.
Right? Either I withhold andprobably don't get included, and
then I don't influence what thedatabase says, or I give my work
to it and I help increase thepower of something that's
(38:49):
ultimately alienating to Mimi,but at least I get to influence
it in some small way. Right? Andso without governance and and
I've actually coauthored anarticle on governance of
generative AI copyright, thatwas just it's just published in
the University of the Indian LawReview online. That is I think
we need to have governmentalagencies saying, okay.
(39:11):
You can use it, but there'sgonna be a levy, and 20% of your
profits are gonna go to theauthors or something like that.
Right? You know, that's the sortof thing that I think would need
to be done or and and createpossibly, tools whereby people
can opt out individually ifdespite getting that sums of
funding from it, they still, asa matter of conscious, don't
(39:32):
wanna be included.
George Justice (39:33):
So with
compensation, I can see, that
many authors, myself included,might be happy, both because
we're getting recognized for,our property. And also as you
point out, the ability toinfluence these large datasets
that otherwise are prettyimpervious to an outside
(39:55):
understanding. And I'm not anexpert in this at all, but I get
terrified when I think that,generative artificial
intelligence is going to spitout answers that are fully
dependent on a limited amount ofinformation that goes into their
databases and may may reflectracism, sexism, nationalism,
(40:19):
other aspects that that I maynot personally believe in
myself. Is there a way and thisgets back to openness and
transparency versus a closedapproach to things. Is there
gonna be a way for society toregulate whether it is the set
of information from whichgenerative AI creates things or
(40:41):
the act of creating thosethings?
Is is regulation gonna bepossible? And how does that
issue of regulation relate tothe notions of liberty that many
of us, hold dear, if not to theextent that the cyber
libertarians David discusseshold them dear? It's
Frank Pasquale (40:59):
yeah. I I I
think that the deregulation is
definitely possible, and I thinkyou're gonna see Europe and
China taking the lead there. Ithink The US is probably gonna
have a tougher time because ofthe way that the First Amendment
has been interpreted. And Ithink you're exactly right to
make this mark this spectrumbetween, say, a cyber
libertarian perspective, awholly libertarian perspective,
(41:21):
and, say, a civil libertarian ora more liberty respecting
perspective that that sort ofsees other values out there. But
I think what's what'sinteresting is to think about,
like, very concrete or one ofone thing that's interesting
about this is to think veryconcretely about what might the
regulation entail to avoid theproblems you're mentioning.
For example, racist materials inthe corpus. Right? Like, for
(41:42):
example, The Washington Post dida expose of one generative AI
dataset that included materialfrom what is clearly a nativist
racist website. Right, and andand others that, you know, are
are highly questionable. And Ithink that, unfortunately, most
(42:03):
of these datasets are completelytrade secret protected.
They're not released to thepublic. So a very first step
would be to say it's not coveredby trade secrecy, and if you
wanna use it in certain areas,you have to reveal everything
that's in the dataset. Andthat's something that I've
written an article about with,Jean Claudio Magerre about that
licensing AI, and I think it'ssomething that David would
certainly endorse, a rule likethat. You know? And so that is a
(42:25):
a a first step.
There are other steps that canbe taken that would make
certain, things, you know, notyou you could ban the use of
certain texts in these sort ofmodels that might be
particularly, in sensitivecontext or or maybe even general
generally. You know, so I Ithink of a of a book like the
Turner diaries as something thatI think David has discussed in
past work as being particularlyexecrable. You know? And you may
(42:48):
wanna just say, don't have it inthere. And and I think that that
is, so so with respect to all ofthese types of questions, you're
right to say there can beoverreach.
Right? I'm certain that, thereare authoritarian regimes that
will overreach and will limitaccess to what could be very
valuable technology. And but Ithink that there has to be that
(43:11):
balance, especially given thestakes and how easily these
types of, technologies take on abig role in people's lives.
George Justice (43:21):
And so David
does seem to point, and I'll get
back to this, the issue ofdemocratic governance and
regulation. I would say that onthe whole, David is optimistic
about the, the possibility thatour democratic government can
create structures through whichappropriate regulation in the
(43:44):
interests of the citizens whoare electing our
representatives. And he pointsto Europe, which has slightly
different ways of doingregulation and different
concrete aspects of regulation,but he links those to the will
of the people in thoseparticular democratic regimes.
(44:06):
Are you optimistic that you areoptimistic that our current
governmental structure might beable to give rise to appropriate
regulatory, apparatus?
Frank Pasquale (44:19):
I think that in
The US, it's a very difficult
question. I think that the Bidenadministration certainly had
some very good leaders advisingus on AI governance and that,
you know, you have people likeLina Khan, who is the chair of
the Federal Trade Commission,who has done extraordinary work
in trying to get a grip on thenew data economy, understanding
(44:41):
it both from a competition andantitrust policy perspective and
also a privacy and data dataprotection perspective. And so
those are all very encouraging.But I also think that what
you're seeing simultaneously isa movement by the Supreme Court
to police administrative actionso extensively that anything
that's done that is bold, anybold new leadership by an agency
(45:05):
revivifying or, to my mind, justproperly applying old statutes
is going to get challenged by aa lot of folks. And then even
more troublingly, that you'regonna see a situation where
these challenges are gonna bebrought to certain judges who
are the most conservative judgeswho can then, if the current
(45:28):
structure of legal, if thecurrent sort of civil procedure
of, appeals is is is sort ofbeing followed, may set the
agency action aside or freeze itfor such a long time while
higher courts are waiting toreview it that you have a
different administration getinto place and just stops the
(45:48):
regulatory action altogether.
So so so this is a way in which,you know, you but, again, it's
it's really interesting to thinkabout, like, the problem of an
active judiciary in The UnitedStates and then to also say be
careful what you wish for.Because when I look at what's
happening now in Mexico withrespect to popular election of
judges, you know, I would notwanna go in that direction.
Right? And so, you know, so wereally have to it's difficult. I
(46:12):
think that you have a judiciarynow that is quite, in many
respects, going in a cyberlibertarian direction.
And David definitely recognizesthat and has recognized that in
the book and was troubled by it.But also, you know, we have
certain alternatives that Ithink David was also sensitive
to sort of this potential redbrown alliance or horseshoe
(46:32):
theory of an authoritarianpopulism that, you know, in the
guise of solving the problemswe've been discussing could
actually exacerbate it.
George Justice (46:42):
So maybe we can
end, on I I wanna ask you a
broad question both about youryour analysis of the book and
your own views, whether you'repessimistic or optimistic. But,
in the context of the last partof the conversation we've had, I
draw listeners' attention to oneof the last pieces David wrote,
(47:03):
which was a medium blog postthat he titled chat GPT should
not exist. And David's point inthat piece is that a lot of the
things that people areinfatuated with generative AI
about and things they thenthings that they've been playing
around with, whether it's makingmusic or making a piece of art
(47:25):
or writing a short story, thatthese are things that we
typically associate with humanthriving and with human
well-being and with humancreativity. He titled the piece,
Chat GPT should not exist, wellknowing that Chat GP does exist
(47:46):
and that it's not going away. Sothere's a kind of elegiac note
to a piece like that and a fearthat many of the things that he
associated with human meaning inhis own life are really being
challenged by technology that weare beginning to take for
(48:08):
granted.
Now that makes it seem likecyber libertarian is a
pessimistic book railing againstan almost inevitability of the
triumph of this falselyinevitable, sense of how the
world is going. I don't thinkit's an entirely pessimistic
(48:32):
book, though. But let me askyou, is do you think David's
book is optimistic orpessimistic? And are you
optimistic or pessimistic aboutthe challenges that David raises
in cyber libertarianism?
Frank Pasquale (48:48):
Let me think
first about this chat g p t
should not exist argument andthen then sort of ease into the
the optimism and and pessimism.I do think well, perhaps, I
think David was pessimistic, inmany ways about the development
of technology and about wherethe polity was heading. I think,
though, that what was reallyremarkable about him was that
(49:10):
despite his pessimism, despiteand perhaps I shouldn't when
when I think about pessimism, II I don't know if it was a full
on philosophical pessimism ofthe type that, you know, Joshua
Ford Einstein talks about in hisbook on pessimism. But I but I
do think it was a it was a sensethat, like, things are going in
the wrong direction and in aself reinforcing way. I think
(49:33):
that was sort of a a a sensethat I I got from David, and I
think certainly there are placeslike x, like, you know, some of
the aspects of our publicdiscourse, where that seems to
be a true diagnosis.
But despite all of that, Davidwould continue to think about
(49:54):
and contribute to publicdiscourse in a way that was just
meant to improve things. So inthat way, however much he, from
an intellectual perspective,worried and had a sense that
there were there were problemsthat were becoming self
reinforcing and larger andlarger, he nevertheless kept
(50:16):
thinking about them andcontributing to them. Right?
Because he could've, you know,he could've, just decided to
write about the, you know, to tohe could've gone in many
different directions than hedid. Right?
He had he had a lot of autonomy,and he had a he was a brilliant
person who could have, you know,only written about things that
he enjoyed thinking about. But Iand I actually coauthored the
article with him, you know, inin about a a book that we both
(50:38):
greatly enjoyed, MT Anderson'sFeed, which I would highly
recommend to everyone to read asa as a compliment to cyber
libertarianism because you canread in the book Feed sort of an
incredibly vivid vision of whatthe world may look like if the
problems that David addresses inthe book are not are not
ultimately solved. So that'swhere I am too. I mean, I think
I I'm I'm there as well. And sonow I wanna come back to the
(51:01):
Chat2BT question.
I think what's interesting aboutDavid's rhetoric in that piece
is I wanna talk away about a wayin which it's deeply responsible
but also needs to be qualified.It's deeply responsible in the
sense that there are so manyvoices online that are saying
that generative AI is thesolution to all the world's
problems and the the Royal Worldartificial general intelligence
(51:22):
that will give us fullyautomated luxury communism,
there's so many people sayingthat, that we need a skeptical
voice to say not only is thisoften bad, but it's so bad it
shouldn't exist. And there aremore and more voices like this,
like people like Dan McQuillanin some of his work in Deeply
Critical AI, Jonathan Creary'sbook, Scorched Earth. There are
(51:45):
other scholars that are workingin this vein. It's useful
because it creates a little bitof open space for people to say,
rather than funding this, eitherhaving huge investors funding it
or government funding it, maybethey should fund other
technology.
Right? Maybe it's not the end ofthe world if we don't have that
much funding of this particulartechnology and it goes by the
(52:05):
wayside. However, one lastcaveat here is that I don't
think you can say that without adeep examination of the
potential ways in which largelanguage model technology spills
over into very practicalapplications for what, you know,
Bacon called the relief of men'sestate, relief of persons
(52:26):
estate, which would be thingslike finding new drugs for
cancer, finding new ways toarrange the electrical grid so
that it's more efficient, youknow, those sorts of things. And
I'm presently trying to do someresearch on that, but I need,
you know, some folks in computerscience to join me on that. So
if anyone's listening, pleasejoin me.
Please let me know because Iwanna know about, you know, is
(52:49):
the technology behind thingslike chatbots, image generating
models, movie generating models,music generating models, which I
think would have beenparticularly depressing to David
because of his, you know, hishis love of music and his
musicianship. I think that thosesorts of things, if they really
are distractions from coretechnological advance that helps
(53:09):
human well-being, then maybethey shouldn't exist, you know,
or maybe we should be highlyskeptical of them. On the other
hand, if they are part of thebroad computer science project
that has all sorts of othergreat spillover effects, then,
we have to value them, you know,much more than than David did in
that in that piece. So it's it'stough.
George Justice (53:30):
And value them
as human tools. They are things
that if we regulate ourselves,if we use our ability to govern
ourselves democratically,generative AI is just another
tool like the Internet, likeWikipedia, like the printing
press that human beings can useto, aid in their own course of
(53:54):
thriving, not as not assomething that's determining
where we're going, but assomething that we choose to use
for human ends and humanpurposes. I love the reference
to music, and I think ofgenerative I I creating music
sort of like in George Orwell'snineteen eighty four, where the
government has this kind ofmachine that kinda spits out
(54:16):
popular songs for the proles in,in the culture. And it's, you
know, of course, you shouldn'tthink of 1984 as predicting
things that are to come to be,but that's a weird little angle
where we now do have machinesthat can pump out plausible pop
songs. And you're right.
That is something that he wouldhave hated with every ounce of
(54:39):
his being because to him, thehuman creativity in making
music, in the community aroundlistening to music, that's
something that he loved as muchas anything else in the world.
Any final thoughts, Frank? I'veenjoyed this conversation
immensely.
Frank Pasquale (54:55):
Oh, thank you so
much, George. This has really
been a pleasure and so edifyingyour your questions, your
thoughtfulness about the book,your tremendous introduction,
which I highly recommend to tothose readers. And I think it
was just such a wonderfulappreciation of David, his
thought, the book itself, andalso, you know, deeply
understood, the book and and andsort of challenged in certain
ways, which we've also done inthis podcast, which I think is
(55:17):
David would want. I think he'dreally enjoy this. And I think
that, you know, your friendshipwith him and your engagement
with this work is really a modelfor all of us in the academy,
and and I really appreciatethat.
So, no, that's I think we'vecovered a lot, and I really look
forward to seeing how the bookis received by the wider world.
Thank you.
George Justice (55:35):
Me too. I hope
we'll have another chance to
talk and and maybe in a venuelike this or somewhere else. I'm
really grateful to David's bookfor, among other things,
bringing you and me togethertoday. So thank you to to Frank
Pasquale. Thank you to theUniversity of Minnesota Press.
This has been as awful as it hasbeen for those of us who love
(55:56):
David to have lost him prior tothis book coming out. I am just
grateful to friends andcolleagues and the press and
others who see value in his workas well as value in him as a
human being. And and I'm, too,I'm excited to see the
conversation that his bookspurs. Frank, thank you so much
for your thoughts. I've learnedso much today.
(56:18):
Whether I'm an optimist or apessimist, I I emerge optimistic
that there are people who arethinking and are trying to make
positive change in the world. Sothank you.
Narrator (56:28):
This has been a
University of Minnesota press
production. The book Cyberlibertarianism: The Right Wing
Politics of Digital Technologyby David Columbia is available
from University of MinnesotaPress. Thank you for listening.