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April 24, 2024 50 mins
How has our data become the world’s most valuable resource? What privacy tradeoffs are we making when we engage with personalized apps, recommendations, and always-connected smart devices? Is our personal data being used to make things better, or to make tech giants even more powerful? And what do “cookies” have to do with all this?  Host Raffi Krikorian chats with experts about data’s role in AI, “big data” and the data economy, surveillance capitalism, and much more. Guests include AI researcher Amba Kak, executive director of the AI Now Institute; data scientist Chris Wiggins, co-author of How Data Happened; media scholar, tech writer, and internet activist Ethan Zuckerman; engineer and inventor of the cookie Lou Montulli; and Harvard professor Jonathan Zittrain. To learn more about Technically Optimistic and to read the transcript for this episode: emersoncollective.com/technically-optimistic-podcast For more on Emerson Collective: emersoncollective.com Learn more about our host, Raffi Krikorian: emersoncollective.com/raffi Technically Optimistic is produced by Emerson Collective with music by Mattie Safer. Subscribe to our weekly newsletter: technicallyoptimistic.substack.com Follow on social media @emersoncollective and @emcollectivepodcasts Email us with questions and feedback at us@technicallyoptimistic.com To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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