Post Syndicated from Bruce Schneier original https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2024/08/upcoming-speaking-engagements-39.html
This is a current list of where and when I am scheduled to speak:
The list is maintained on this page.
Post Syndicated from Bruce Schneier original https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2024/07/upcoming-speaking-engagements-38.html
This is a current list of where and when I am scheduled to speak:
The list is maintained on this page.
Post Syndicated from Bruce Schneier original https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2024/07/upcoming-book-on-ai-and-democracy.html
If you’ve been reading my blog, you’ve noticed that I have written a lot about AI and democracy, mostly with my co-author Nathan Sanders. I am pleased to announce that we’re writing a book on the topic.
This isn’t a book about deep fakes, or misinformation. This is a book about what happens when AI writes laws, adjudicates disputes, audits bureaucratic actions, assists in political strategy, and advises citizens on what candidates and issues to support. It’s a book that tries to look into what an AI-assisted democratic system might look like, and then at how to best ensure that we make use of the good parts while avoiding the bad parts.
This is what I talked about in my RSA Conference speech last month, which you can both watch and read. (You can also read earlier attempts at this idea.)
The book will be published by MIT Press sometime in fall 2025, with an open-access digital version available a year after that. (It really can’t be published earlier. Nothing published this year will rise above the noise of the US presidential election, and anything published next spring will have to go to press without knowing the results of that election.)
Right now, the organization of the book is in six parts:
AI-Assisted Politicians
AI-Assisted Legislators
The AI-Assisted Administration
The AI-Assisted Legal System
AI-Assisted Citizens
Getting the Future We Want
It’s too early to share a more detailed table of contents, but I would like help thinking about titles. Below are my current list of brainstorming ideas: both titles and subtitles. Please mix and match, or suggest your own in the comments. No idea is too far afield, because anything can spark more ideas.
Titles:
AI and Democracy
Democracy with AI
Democracy after AI
Democratia ex Machina
Democracy ex Machina
E Pluribus, Machina
Democracy and the Machines
Democracy with Machines
Building Democracy with Machines
Democracy in the Loop
We the People + AI
Artificial Democracy
AI Enhanced Democracy
The State of AI
Citizen AITrusting the Bots
Trusting the Computer
Trusting the MachineThe End of the Beginning
Sharing Power
Better Run
Speed, Scale, Scope, and Sophistication
The New Model of Governance
Model Citizen
Artificial Individualism
Subtitles:
How AI Upsets the Power Balances of Democracy
Twenty (or So) Ways AI will Change Democracy
Reimagining Democracy for the Age of AI
Who Wins and Loses
How Democracy Thrives in an AI-Enhanced World
Ensuring that AI Enhances Democracy and Doesn’t Destroy It
How AI Will Change Politics, Legislating, Bureaucracy, Courtrooms, and Citizens
AI’s Transformation of Government, Citizenship, and Everything In-Between
Remaking Democracy, from Voting to Legislating to Waiting in Line
How to Make Democracy Work for People in an AI Future
How AI Will Totally Reshape Democracies and Democratic Institutions
Who Wins and Loses when AI Governs
How to Win and Not Lose With AI as a Partner
AI’s Transformation of Democracy, for Better and for Worse
How AI Can Improve Society and Not Destroy It
How AI Can Improve Society and Not Subvert It
Of the People, for the People, with a Whole lot of AI
How AI Will Reshape Democracy
How the AI Revolution Will Reshape Democracy
Combinations:
Imagining a Thriving Democracy in the Age of AI: How Technology Enhances Democratic Ideals and Nurtures a Society that Serves its People
Making Model Citizens: How to Put AI to Use to Help Democracy
Modeling Citizenship: Who Wins and Who Loses when AI Transforms Democracy
A Model for Government: Democracy with AI, and How to Make it Work for UsAI of, By, and for the People: How Artificial Intelligence will reshape Democracy
The (AI) Political Revolution: Speed, Scale, Scope, Sophistication, and our Democracy
Speed, Scale, Scope, Sophistication: The AI Democratic Revolution
The Artificial Political Revolution: X Ways AI will Change Democracy…Forever
EDITED TO ADD (7/10): More options:
The Silicon Realignment: The Future of Political Power in a Digital World
Political Machines
EveryTHING is political
Post Syndicated from Bruce Schneier original https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2024/06/new-blog-moderation-policy.html
There has been a lot of toxicity in the comments section of this blog. Recently, we’re having to delete more and more comments. Not just spam and off-topic comments, but also sniping and personal attacks. It’s gotten so bad that I need to do something.
My options are limited because I’m just one person, and this website is free, ad-free, and anonymous. I pay for a part-time moderator out of pocket; he isn’t able to constantly monitor comments. And I’m unwilling to require verified accounts.
So starting now, we will be pre-screening comments and letting through only those that 1) are on topic, 2) contribute to the discussion, and 3) don’t attack or insult anyone. The standard is not going to be “well, I guess this doesn’t technically quite break a rule,” but “is this actually contributing.”
Obviously, this is a subjective standard; sometimes good comments will accidentally get thrown out. And the delayed nature of the screening will result in less conversation and more disjointed comments. Those are costs, and they’re significant ones. But something has to be done, and I would like to try this before turning off all comments.
I am going to disable comments on the weekly squid posts. Topicality is too murky on an open thread, and these posts are especially hard to keep on top of.
Comments will be reviewed and published when possible, usually in the morning and evening. Sometimes it will take longer. Again, the moderator is part time, so please be patient.
I apologize to all those who have just kept commenting reasonably all along. But I’ve received three e-mails in the past couple of months about people who have given up on comments because of the toxicity.
So let’s see if this works. I’ve been able to maintain an anonymous comment section on this blog for almost twenty years. It’s kind of astounding that it’s worked as long as it has. Maybe its time is up.
Post Syndicated from Bruce Schneier original https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2024/06/upcoming-speaking-engagements-37.html
This is a current list of where and when I am scheduled to speak:
The list is maintained on this page.
Post Syndicated from Bruce Schneier original https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2024/05/upcoming-speaking-engagements-36.html
This is a current list of where and when I am scheduled to speak:
The list is maintained on this page.
Post Syndicated from Bruce Schneier original https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2024/05/my-ted-talks.html
I have spoken at several TED conferences over the years.
I’m putting this here because I want all three links in one place.
Post Syndicated from Bruce Schneier original https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2024/04/upcoming-speaking-engagements-35.html
This is a current list of where and when I am scheduled to speak:
The list is maintained on this page.
Post Syndicated from Bruce Schneier original https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2024/02/a-hackers-mind-is-out-in-paperback.html
The paperback version of A Hacker’s Mind has just been published. It’s the same book, only a cheaper format.
But—and this is the real reason I am posting this—Amazon has significantly discounted the hardcover to $15 to get rid of its stock. This is much cheaper than I am selling it for, and cheaper even than the paperback. So if you’ve been waiting for a price drop, this is your chance.
Post Syndicated from Bruce Schneier original https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2024/01/zelle-is-using-my-name-and-voice-without-my-consent.html
Okay, so this is weird. Zelle has been using my name, and my voice, in audio podcast ads—without my permission. At least, I think it is without my permission. It’s possible that I gave some sort of blanket permission when speaking at an event. It’s not likely, but it is possible.
I wrote to Zelle about it. Or, at least, I wrote to a company called Early Warning that owns Zelle about it. They asked me where the ads appeared. This seems odd to me. Podcast distribution networks drop ads in podcasts depending on the listener—like personalized ads on webpages—so the actual podcast doesn’t matter. And shouldn’t they know their own ads? Annoyingly, it seems time to get attorneys involved.
What would help is to have a copy of the actual ad. (Or ads, I’m assuming there’s only one.) So, has anyone else heard me in a Zelle ad? Does anyone happen to have an audio recording? Please email me.
And I will update this post if I learn anything more. Or if there is some actual legal action. (And if this post ever disappears, you’ll know I was required to take it down for some reason.)
Post Syndicated from B. Schneier original https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2024/01/upcoming-speaking-engagements-33.html
This is a current list of where and when I am scheduled to speak:
The list is maintained on this page.
Post Syndicated from Bruce Schneier original https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2024/01/second-interdisciplinary-workshop-on-reimagining-democracy.html
Last month, I convened the Second Interdisciplinary Workshop on Reimagining Democracy (IWORD 2023) at the Harvard Kennedy School Ash Center. As with IWORD 2022, the goal was to bring together a diverse set of thinkers and practitioners to talk about how democracy might be reimagined for the twenty-first century.
My thinking is very broad here. Modern democracy was invented in the mid-eighteenth century, using mid-eighteenth-century technology. Were democracy to be invented from scratch today, with today’s technologies, it would look very different. Representation would look different. Adjudication would look different. Resource allocation and reallocation would look different. Everything would look different, because we would have much more powerful technology to build on and no legacy systems to worry about.
Such speculation is not realistic, of course, but it’s still valuable. Everyone seems to be talking about ways to reform our existing systems. That’s critically important, but it’s also myopic. It represents a hill-climbing strategy of continuous improvements. We also need to think about discontinuous changes that you can’t easily get to from here; otherwise, we’ll be forever stuck at local maxima.
I wrote about the philosophy more in this essay about IWORD 2022. IWORD 2023 was equally fantastic, easily the most intellectually stimulating two days of my year. The event is like that; the format results in a firehose of interesting.
Summaries of all the talks are in the first set of comments below. (You can read a similar summary of IWORD 2022 here.) Thank you to the Ash Center and the Belfer Center at Harvard Kennedy School, and the Knight Foundation, for the funding to make this possible.
Next year, I hope to take the workshop out of Harvard and somewhere else. I would like it to live on for as long as it is valuable.
Now, I really want to explain the format in detail, because it works so well.
I used a workshop format I and others invented for another interdisciplinary workshop: Security and Human Behavior, or SHB. It’s a two-day event. Each day has four ninety-minute panels. Each panel has six speakers, each of whom presents for ten minutes. Then there are thirty minutes of questions and comments from the audience. Breaks and meals round out the day.
The workshop is limited to forty-eight attendees, which means that everyone is on a panel. This is important: every attendee is a speaker. And attendees commit to being there for the whole workshop; no giving your talk and then leaving. This makes for a very collaborative environment. The short presentations means that no one can get too deep into details or jargon. This is important for an interdisciplinary event. Everyone is interesting for ten minutes.
The final piece of the workshop is the social events. We have a night-before opening reception, a conference dinner after the first day, and a final closing reception after the second day. Good food is essential.
Honestly, it’s great but it’s also it’s exhausting. Everybody is interesting for ten minutes. There’s no down time to zone out or check email. And even though a shorter event would be easier to deal with, the numbers all fit together in a way that’s hard to change. A one-day event means only twenty-four attendees/speakers, and that’s not a critical mass. More people per panel doesn’t work. Not everyone speaking creates a speaker/audience hierarchy, which I want to avoid. And a three-day, slower-paced event is too long. I’ve thought about it long and hard; the format I’m using is optimal.
Post Syndicated from Bruce Schneier original https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2023/12/ben-rothkes-review-of-a-hackers-mind.html
Ben Rothke chose A Hacker’s Mind as “the best information security book of 2023.”
Post Syndicated from Bruce Schneier original https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2023/11/upcoming-speaking-engagements-32.html
This is a current list of where and when I am scheduled to speak:
The list is maintained on this page.
Post Syndicated from Bruce Schneier original https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2023/09/new-revelations-from-the-snowden-documents.html
Jake Appelbaum’s PhD thesis contains several new revelations from the classified NSA documents provided to journalists by Edward Snowden. Nothing major, but a few more tidbits.
Kind of amazing that that all happened ten years ago. At this point, those documents are more historical than anything else.
And it’s unclear who has those archives anymore. According to Appelbaum, The Intercept destroyed their copy.
I recently published an essay about my experiences ten years ago.
Post Syndicated from Schneier.com Webmaster original https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2023/04/upcoming-speaking-engagements-29.html
This is a current list of where and when I am scheduled to speak:
The list is maintained on this page.
Post Syndicated from Bruce Schneier original https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2023/03/a-hackers-mind-news-2.html
My latest book continues to sell well. Its ranking hovers between 1,500 and 2,000 on Amazon. It’s been spied in airports.
Reviews are consistently good. I have been enjoying giving podcast interviews. It all feels pretty good right now.
You can order a signed book from me here.
For those of you in New York, I’m giving at book talk at the Ford Foundation on Thursday, April 6. Admission is free, but you have to register.
Post Syndicated from Schneier.com Webmaster original https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2023/03/upcoming-speaking-engagements-28.html
This is a current list of where and when I am scheduled to speak:
The list is maintained on this page.
Post Syndicated from Schneier.com Webmaster original https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2023/02/upcoming-speaking-engagements-27.html
This is a current list of where and when I am scheduled to speak:
The list is maintained on this page.
Post Syndicated from Bruce Schneier original https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2023/02/a-hackers-mind-is-now-published.html
Tuesday was the official publication date of A Hacker’s Mind: How the Powerful Bend Society’s Rules, and How to Bend them Back. It broke into the 2000s on the Amazon best-seller list.
Reviews in the New York Times, Cory Doctorow’s blog, Science, and the Associated Press.
I wrote essays related to the book for CNN and John Scalzi’s blog.
Two podcast interviews: Keen On and Lawfare. And a written interview for the Ash Center at the Harvard Kennedy School.
Lots more coming, I believe. Get your copy here.
And—last request—right now there’s one Amazon review, and it’s not a good one. If people here could leave reviews, I would appreciate it.