Stanford University

Security

FSI scholars produce research aimed at creating a safer world and examing the consequences of security policies on institutions and society. They look at longstanding issues including nuclear nonproliferation and the conflicts between countries like North and South Korea. But their research also examines new and emerging areas that transcend traditional borders – the drug war in Mexico and expanding terrorism networks. FSI researchers look at the changing methods of warfare with a focus on biosecurity and nuclear risk. They tackle cybersecurity with an eye toward privacy concerns and explore the implications of new actors like hackers.

Along with the changing face of conflict, terrorism and crime, FSI researchers study food security. They tackle the global problems of hunger, poverty and environmental degradation by generating knowledge and policy-relevant solutions. 

Coronavirus Could Make America’s Gun Problem Even Deadlier

Paragraphs

Millions of Americans have experienced the coronavirus pandemic directly, as they or their loved ones suffered through infection. But for most of us, the experience is defined by weeks and months on end stuck at home. The shut-ins are testing the safety of our home environments. Stress and isolation combined with another feature of American life — easy access to firearms — could form a deadly brew. Last week we released results of a new study — the largest ever on the connection between suicide and handgun ownership — in The New England Journal of Medicine revealing that gun owners were nearly four times as likely to die by suicide than people without guns, even when controlling for gender, age, race and neighborhood.

All Publications button
1
Publication Type
Commentary
Publication Date
Journal Publisher
The New York Times
Authors
David Studdert
External URL

Evidence-Based Practice for Public Health Emergency Preparedness and Response

Paragraphs

Yet there has been no national-level, comprehensive review of the evidence for public health emergency preparedness and response (PHEPR) practices. Recognizing this deficiency, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) went to the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine three years ago and asked them to convene a national panel of public health experts to review the evidence for emergency preparedness and response. The committee members included Stanford Health Policy Director Douglas K. Owens. The committee issued its findings July 14 with a report at a Zoom conference.

All Publications button
1
Publication Type
Case Studies
Publication Date
Journal Publisher
National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine
Authors
Jeremy Goldhaber-Fiebert
Douglas K. Owens
Number
2020
External URL

The Historic 2020 elections

-

**Please note all CDDRL events are scheduled using the Pacific Time Zone

About the Event:

On November 3, in the midst of a pandemic, America elects its next President. CDDRL scholars will discuss the election results (or election challenges), Trump and Biden, key Congressional races, and what to expect between November and Inauguration Day. Join Bruce Cain, Nate Persily, Hakeem Jefferson, and Didi Kuo.

About the Speakers:

Bruce E. Cain is a Professor of Political Science at Stanford University and Director of the Bill Lane Center for the American West. He received a BA from Bowdoin College (1970), a B Phil. from Oxford University (1972) as a Rhodes Scholar, and a Ph D from Harvard University (1976). He taught at Caltech (1976-89) and UC Berkeley (1989-2012) before coming to Stanford. Professor Cain was Director of the Institute of Governmental Studies at UC Berkeley from 1990-2007 and Executive Director of the UC Washington Center from 2005-2012. His areas of expertise include political regulation, applied democratic theory, representation and state politics.

Nathaniel Persily is the James B. McClatchy Professor of Law at Stanford Law School, with appointments in the departments of Political Science, Communication and FSI.  Prior to joining Stanford, Professor Persily taught at Columbia and the University of Pennsylvania Law School, and as a visiting professor at Harvard, NYU, Princeton, the University of Amsterdam, and the University of Melbourne. Professor Persily’s scholarship and legal practice focus on American election law or what is sometimes called the “law of democracy,” which addresses issues such as voting rights, political parties, campaign finance, redistricting, and election administration. He has served as a special master or court-appointed expert to craft congressional or legislative districting plans for Georgia, Maryland, Connecticut, and New York, and as the Senior Research Director for the Presidential Commission on Election Administration. In addition to dozens of articles (many of which have been cited by the Supreme Court) on the legal regulation of political parties, issues surrounding the census and redistricting process, voting rights, and campaign finance reform.

Hakeem Jefferson is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Stanford University. His research interests move at the intersection of American politics and social psychology. In particular, his current work examines the conditions under which members of stigmatized groups punish group members who transgress social norms. Moving beyond a study of identity that centers largely on the attitudes and predilections of dominant social groups, his work explores the psychological and instrumental considerations stigmatized individuals bring to bear in response to “bad” (negatively stereotyped) behavior from within their own group. Using African-Americans as the test case, this work builds on scholarship about the politics of respectability and in-group policing to inform conversations about Blacks’ attitudes toward punitive social policies.

Didi Kuo is the Associate Director for Research and Senior Research Scholar at the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law at Stanford University. She is a scholar of comparative politics, with a focus on democratization, corruption and clientelism, political parties and institutions, and political reform. Her recent work examines changes to party organization, and the impact these changes have on the ability of governments to address challenges posed by global capitalism. She is the author of Clientelism, Capitalism, and Democracy: the rise of programmatic politics in the United States and Britain (Cambridge University Press, 2018), which examines the role of business against clientelism and the development of modern political parties in the nineteenth-century.

Online, via Zoom: REGISTER

Bruce Cain Professor of Political Science at Stanford University

Nathaniel Persily

Stanford Law School Neukom Building, Room N230 Stanford, CA 94305
650-725-9875
0
James B. McClatchy Professor of Law at Stanford Law School
Senior Fellow, Freeman Spogli Institute
Professor, by courtesy, Political Science
Professor, by courtesy, Communication
headshot_3.jpg

Nathaniel Persily is the James B. McClatchy Professor of Law at Stanford Law School, with appointments in the departments of Political Science, Communication, and FSI.  Prior to joining Stanford, Professor Persily taught at Columbia and the University of Pennsylvania Law School, and as a visiting professor at Harvard, NYU, Princeton, the University of Amsterdam, and the University of Melbourne. Professor Persily’s scholarship and legal practice focus on American election law or what is sometimes called the “law of democracy,” which addresses issues such as voting rights, political parties, campaign finance, redistricting, and election administration. He has served as a special master or court-appointed expert to craft congressional or legislative districting plans for Georgia, Maryland, Connecticut, New York, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania.  He also served as the Senior Research Director for the Presidential Commission on Election Administration. In addition to dozens of articles (many of which have been cited by the Supreme Court) on the legal regulation of political parties, issues surrounding the census and redistricting process, voting rights, and campaign finance reform, Professor Persily is coauthor of the leading election law casebook, The Law of Democracy (Foundation Press, 5th ed., 2016), with Samuel Issacharoff, Pamela Karlan, and Richard Pildes. His current work, for which he has been honored as a Guggenheim Fellow, Andrew Carnegie Fellow, and a Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, examines the impact of changing technology on political communication, campaigns, and election administration.  He is codirector of the Stanford Program on Democracy and the Internet, and Social Science One, a project to make available to the world’s research community privacy-protected Facebook data to study the impact of social media on democracy.  He is also a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a commissioner on the Kofi Annan Commission on Elections and Democracy in the Digital Age.  Along with Professor Charles Stewart III, he recently founded HealthyElections.Org (the Stanford-MIT Healthy Elections Project) which aims to support local election officials in taking the necessary steps during the COVID-19 pandemic to provide safe voting options for the 2020 election. He received a B.A. and M.A. in political science from Yale (1992); a J.D. from Stanford (1998) where he was President of the Stanford Law Review, and a Ph.D. in political science from U.C. Berkeley in 2002.   

CV
Hide publication sections
Off
Date Label
James B. McClatchy Professor of Law at Stanford Law School
Hakeem Jefferson Assistant Professor of Political Science at Stanford University

Didi Kuo

Encina Hall, C150
616 Jane Stanford Way
Stanford, CA 94305

0
Center Fellow, Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
didi_kuo_2023.jpg

Didi Kuo is a Center Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI) at Stanford University. She is a scholar of comparative politics with a focus on democratization, corruption and clientelism, political parties and institutions, and political reform. She is the author of The Great Retreat: How Political Parties Should Behave and Why They Don’t (Oxford University Press) and Clientelism, Capitalism, and Democracy: the rise of programmatic politics in the United States and Britain (Cambridge University Press, 2018).

She has been at Stanford since 2013 as the manager of the Program on American Democracy in Comparative Perspective and is co-director of the Fisher Family Honors Program at CDDRL. She was an Eric and Wendy Schmidt Fellow at New America and is a non-resident fellow with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. She received a PhD in political science from Harvard University, an MSc in Economic and Social History from Oxford University, where she studied as a Marshall Scholar, and a BA from Emory University.

Hide publication sections
Off
Date Label
Associate Director for Research and Senior Research Scholar at the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law at Stanford University.
Seminars

Oriana Skylar Mastro Awarded America in the World Consortium Prize for Best Policy Article

News Type
News
Date
Paragraphs

We are happy to share that Oriana Skylar Mastro, an incoming FSI Center Fellow at APARC, has been awarded the 2020 America in the World Consortium Prize for Best Policy Article on U.S. Foreign Policy and Grand Strategy for her article, “The Stealth Superpower: How China Hid Its Global Ambitions” in Foreign Affairs. The award is given annually by the Consortium — which includes the Kissinger Center and Johns Hopkins SAIS, Duke University, and the University of Texas at Austin — for research articles by pre-tenure scholars addressing a major issue of American foreign policy.

Mastro's winning article provides an insightful analysis of the careful, deliberate efforts the PRC has undertaken to obscure its growing global influence. “Although Beijing has pursued an indirect and entrepreneurial strategy of accumulating power,” she writes, “make no mistake: the ultimate goal is to push the United States out of the Indo-Pacific and rival it on the global stage.” Her research as an academic and a United States Air Force Reserve officer focuses on rising global powers and how perceptions of power impact the process and precursors to conflict, particularly in regards to China and East Asian security. As an FSI Center Fellow, she will be based at APARC and also work with CISAC. 

[Sign up for our newsletters to get the latest from our scholars and researchers.]

Mastro describes how the current administration in China epitomizes Deng Xiaoping’s counsel to “Hide your strength, bide your time” by exploiting gaps in international policy and American attention. Rather than compete outright, China leverages ambiguities in existing policies and practices in order to further its agenda and ambitions while still remaining within the rubric of international order. This strategy has allowed it to continue in its assertions in the South China Sea, establish rules on technology like AI that favor Chinese companies while stalling consensus on other issues like cybersecurity and “cyber-sovereignty,” and create a network of economic and political partnerships with nations traditionally outside the United State’s purview.

The result is that China is carefully cultivating a quiet but hugely impactful influence across the globe. To counter this strategy, Mastro urges the United States to lead out on the world stage by increasing its participation in international institutions and agreements, and through deepening and diversifying its relationships with allies and partners. In a time when international tensions are increasing and a pivotal election looms, these perspectives couldn’t be more timely.

Congratulations, Oriana, on the recognition for your excellent research and insight!

Read Oriana’s award-winning article here >>

Read More

Portrait of Oriana Mastro with text: "Q&A with Oriana Skylar Mastro"
Q&As

FSI’s Incoming Center Fellow Oriana Skylar Mastro Discusses Chinese Ambitions, Deteriorating U.S.-China Relations

Mastro, whose appointment as a Center Fellow at Shorenstein APARC begins on August 1, considers the worsening relations between the world’s two largest economies, analyzes Chinese maritime ambitions, and talks about her military career and new research projects.
FSI’s Incoming Center Fellow Oriana Skylar Mastro Discusses Chinese Ambitions, Deteriorating U.S.-China Relations
Hero Image
[left: image] Oriana Skylar Mastro, [right: text] Congratulations, Oriana Skylar Mastro, Recipient of the 2020 America in the World Consortium Prize for 'Best Policy Article' from Duke University, Johns Hopkins SAIS, and Texas University at Austin
Oriana Skylar Mastro, recipient of the 2020 America in the World Consortium Prize for 'Best Policy Article' from Duke University, Johns Hopkins SAIS, and Texas University at Austin.
All News button
1
Subtitle

Mastro, who begins her role as FSI Center Fellow on August 1, has won the AWC Best Policy Article on U.S. Foreign Policy and Grand Strategy award for her insights on how China leverages ambiguity to gain global influence and what the United States can do to counter the PRC’s ambitions.

How National Security Intelligence is Provided to the President and Senior Officials

-

This event will take place on Zoom. Registration is required: https://stanford.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_Gx87y_GDR7aZmt74JWKosg

Recent commentary about what the Intelligence Community told or should have told the President about Russian support to the Taliban has presented a distorted and incomplete view of the roles of intelligence and intelligence professionals. FSI Fellow Thomas Fingar will describe how the process of providing intelligence to policy makers is supposed to work and who decides what intelligence is given to which senior officials. As Deputy Director of National Intelligence for Analysis, Fingar was in charge of the President’s Daily Brief from 2005-2008. From 1994 through 2005, he was responsible for the Secretary’s Morning [Intelligence] Summary and other analytic products for the Secretary of State. FSI Senior Fellow Amy Zegart will serve as commentator and moderator. Zegart is a professor of political science (by courtesy), and served on the Clinton administration’s National Security Council staff and as a foreign policy adviser to the Bush‑Cheney 2000 presidential campaign.

Exploring Potential “Solutions” to Online Disinformation

-

Avi Tuschman, Adam Berinsky, David Rand

Please join the Cyber Policy Center for Exploring Potential “Solutions” to Online Disinformation​, hosted by Cyber Policy Center's Kelly Born, with guests Adam Berinsky, Mitsui Professor of Political Science at MIT and Director of the MIT Political Experiments Research Lab (PERL) at MIT, David Rand, Erwin H. Schell Professor and an Associate Professor of Management Science and Brain and Cognitive Sciences, and Director of the Human Cooperation Laboratory and the Applied Cooperation Team at MIT, and Avi Tuschman, Founder & CIO, Pinpoint Predictive. The session is open but registraton is required.

REGISTER

 

Adam Berinsky is the Mitsui Professor of Political Science at MIT and serves as the director of the MIT Political Experiments Research Lab (PERL). He is also a Faculty Affiliate at the Institute for Data, Systems, and Society (IDSS). Berinsky received his PhD from the University of Michigan in 2000. He is the author of "In Time of War: Understanding American Public Opinion from World War II to Iraq" (University of Chicago Press, 2009). He is also the author of "Silent Voices: Public Opinion and Political Participation in America" (Princeton University Press, 2004) and has published articles in many journals. He is currently the co-editor of the Chicago Studies in American Politics book series at the University of Chicago Press. He is also the recipient of multiple grants from the National Science Foundation and was a fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences.

David Rand is the Erwin H. Schell Professor and an Associate Professor of Management Science and Brain and Cognitive Sciences at MIT Sloan, and the Director of the Human Cooperation Laboratory and the Applied Cooperation Team. Bridging the fields of behavioral economics and psychology, David’s research combines mathematical/computational models with human behavioral experiments and online/field studies to understand human behavior. His work uses a cognitive science perspective grounded in the tension between more intuitive versus deliberative modes of decision-making, and explores topics such as cooperation/prosociality, punishment/condemnation, perceived accuracy of false or misleading news stories, political preferences, and the dynamics of social media platform behavior. 

Avi Tuschman is a Stanford StartX entrepreneur and founder of Pinpoint Predictive, where he currently serves as Chief Innovation Officer and Board Director. He’s spent the past five years developing the first Psychometric AI-powered data-enrichment platform, which ranks 260 million individuals for performance marketing and risk management applications. Tuschman is an expert on the science of heritable psychometric traits. His book and research on human political orientation have been covered in peer-reviewed and mainstream media from 25 countries. Previous to his career in tech, he advised current and former heads of state as well as multilateral development banks in the Western Hemisphere. Tuschman completed his undergraduate and doctoral degrees in evolutionary anthropology at Stanford.

Anat R. Admati

0
George G.C. Parker Professor of Finance and Economics, Stanford Graduate School of Business
Director of the Corporations and Society Initiative, Stanford Graduate School of Business
Director of the Program on Capitalism and Democracy, Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law
Senior Fellow, Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research
Senior Fellow (by courtesy), Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
anat_admati-stanford-2021.jpg

Anat R. Admati is the George G.C. Parker Professor of Finance and Economics at Stanford University Graduate School of Business (GSB), a Faculty Director of the GSB Corporations and Society Initiative, and a senior fellow at Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research. She has written extensively on information dissemination in financial markets, portfolio management, financial contracting, corporate governance and banking. Admati’s current research, teaching and advocacy focus on the complex interactions between business, law, and policy with focus on governance and accountability.

Since 2010, Admati has been active in the policy debate on financial regulations. She is the co-author, with Martin Hellwig, of the award-winning and highly acclaimed book The Bankers’ New Clothes: What’s Wrong with Banking and What to Do about It (Princeton University Press, 2013; bankersnewclothes.com). In 2014, she was named by Time Magazine as one of the 100 most influential people in the world and by Foreign Policy Magazine as among 100 global thinkers.

Admati holds BSc from the Hebrew University, MA, MPhil and PhD from Yale University, and an honorary doctorate from University of Zurich. She is a fellow of the Econometric Society, the recipient of multiple fellowships, research grants, and paper recognition, and is a past board member of the American Finance Association. She has served on a number of editorial boards and is a member of the FDIC’s Systemic Resolution Advisory Committee, a former member of the CFTC’s Market Risk Advisory Committee, and a former visiting scholar at the International Monetary Fund.

Hide publication sections
Off
Date Label

Q&A: The Data Delusion

News Type
Q&As
Date
Paragraphs

Marietje Schaake

 

  

DOWNLOAD THE PAPER 

 

The European Union is often called a ‘super-regulator’, especially when it comes to data-protection and privacy rules. Having seen European lawmaking from close by, in all its complexities, I have often considered this qualification an exaggerated one. Yes, the European Union frequently takes the first steps in ensuring principles continue to be protected, even as digitization disrupts. However, the speed with which technology evolves versus the pace of democratic lawmaking leads to perpetual mismatches.  

Even the famous, or infamous, General Data Protection Regulation does not meet many essential regulatory needs of the moment. The mainstreaming of Artificial Intelligence in particular, poses new challenges to concepts of the protection of rights and the sustaining of the rule of law. In its White Paper on Artificial Intelligence, as well the Data Strategy, the European Commission references to the common good and the public interest, as well as societal needs as opposed to an emphasis on regulating the digital market. These are welcome steps in acknowledging the depth and scope of technological impact and defining harms not just in economic terms. It remains to be seen how the visions articulated in the White Paper and the Strategy, will translate into concrete legislation. 

One proposal to make concrete improvements to legal frameworks, is outlined by Martin Tisné in The Data Delusion. He highlights the need to update legal privacy standards to be more reflective of the harms incurred through collective data analysis, as opposed to individual privacy violations. Martin makes a clear case for addressing the discrepancy between the profit models benefitting from grouped data versus the ability of any individual to prove the harms caused to his or her rights. 

The lack of transparency into the inner workings of algorithmic processing of data further hinders the path to much needed accountability of the powerful technology businesses operating growing parts of our information architecture and the data flows they process.  

While EU takes the lead in setting values-based standards and rules for the digital layer of our societies and economies, a lot of work remains to be done. 

Marietje Schaake: Martin, in your paper you address the gap between the benefits for technology companies through collective data processing, and the harms for society. You point to historic reasons for individual privacy protections in European laws. Do you consider the European Union to be the best positioned to address the legal shortcomings, especially as you point out that some opportunities to do so were missed in the GDPR?

Martin Tisné: Europe is well positioned but perhaps not for the reasons we traditionally think of (strong privacy tradition, empowered regulators). Individual privacy alone is a necessary, but not sufficient foundation stone to build the future of AI regulation. And whilst much is made of European regulators, the GDPR has been hobbled by the lack of funding and capacity of data protection commissioners across Europe. What Europe does have though, is a legal, political and societal tradition of thinking about the public interest, the common good and how this is balanced against individual interests. This is where we should innovate, taking inspiration from environmental legislation such as the Urgenda Climate Case against the Dutch Government which established that the government had a legal duty to prevent dangerous climate change, in the name of the public interest. 

And Europe also has a lot to learn from other political and legal cultures. Part of the future of data regulation may come the indigenous data rights movement, with greater emphasis on the societal and group impacts of data, or from the concept of Ubuntu ethics that assigns community and personhood to all people. 

Schaake: What scenario do you foresee in 10 years if collective harms are not dealt with in updates of laws? 

Tisné: I worry we will see two impacts. The first is a continuation of what we are seeing now: negative impacts of digital technologies on discrimination, voting rights, privacy, consumers. As people become increasingly aware of the problem there will be a corresponding increase in legal challenges. We’re seeing this already for example with the Lloyd class action case against Google for collecting iPhone data. But I worry these will fail to stick and have lasting impact because of the obligation to have these cases turn on one person, or a class of people’s, individual experiences. It is very hard for individuals to seek remedy for collective harms, as opposed to personal privacy invasions. So unless we solve the issue I raise in the paper – the collective impact of AI and automation – these will continue to fuel polarization, discrimination on the basis of age, gender (and many other aspects of our lives) and the further strengthening of populist regimes. 

I also worry about the ways in which algorithms will optimize on the basis of seemingly random classifications (e.g. “people who wear blue shirts, get up early on Saturday mornings, and were geo-located in a particular area of town at a particular time”). These may be proxies for protected characteristics (age, gender reassignment, disability, race, religion, sex, marriage, pregnancy/maternity, sexual orientation) and provide grounds for redress. They may also not be and sow the seeds of future discrimination and harms. Authoritarian rulers are likely to take advantage of the seeming invisibility of those data-driven harms to further silence their opponents. How can I protect myself if I don’t know the basis on which I am being discriminated against or targeted? 

Schaake: How do you reflect on the difference in speed between technological innovations and democratic lawmaking? Some people imply this will give authoritarian regimes an advantage in setting global standards and rules. What are your thoughts on ensuring democratic governments speed up? 

Tisné: Democracies cannot afford to be outpaced by technological innovation and constantly be fighting yesterday’s wars. Our laws have not changed to reflect changes in technology, which extracts value from collective data, and need to catch up.  A lot of the problems stem from the fact that in government (as in companies), the people responsible for enforcement are separated from those with the technical understanding. The solution lies in much better translation between technology, policy and the needs of the public.  

An innovation and accountability-led government must involve and empower the public in co-creating policies, above and beyond the existing rules that engage individuals (consent forms etc.). In the paper I propose a Public Interest Data Bill that addresses this need: the rules of the digital highway used as a negotiation between the public and regulators, between private data consumers and data generators. Specifically: clear transparency, public participation and realistic sanctions when things go wrong.

This is where democracies should hone their advantage over authoritarian regimes – using such an approach as the basis for setting global standards and best practices (e.g. affected communities providing input into algorithmic impact assessments). 

Schaake: The protection of privacy is what sets democratic societies apart from authoritarian ones. How likely is it that we will see an effort between democracies to set legal standards across borders together? Can we overcome the political tensions across the Atlantic, and strengthen democratic alliances globally?

Tisné: I remain a big supporter of international cooperation. I helped found the Open Government Partnership ten years ago, which remains the main forum for 79 countries to develop innovative open government reforms jointly with the public. Its basic principles hold true: involve global south and global north countries with equal representation, bring civil society in jointly with government from the outset, seek out and empower reformers within government (they exist, regardless of who is in power in the given year), and go local to identify exciting innovations. 

If we heed those principles we can set legal standards by learning from open data and civic technology reforms in Taiwan, experiments with data trusts in India, legislation to hold algorithms accountable in France; and by identifying and working with the individuals driving those innovations, reformers such as Audrey Tang in Taiwan, Katarzyna Szymielewicz in Poland, and Henri Verdier in France. 

These reformers need a home, a base to influence policymakers and technologists, to get those people responsible for enforcement working with those with the technical understanding. The Global Partnership on Artificial Intelligence may be that home but these are early days, it needs to be agile enough to work with the private sector, civil society as well as governments and the international system. I remain hopeful. 

 

 

All News button
1
Subtitle

Protecting Individual Isn't Enough When the Harm is Collective. A Q&A with Marietje Schaake and Martin Tisne on his new paper The Data Delusion.

The Rise of Digital Authoritarianism: China, AI and Human Rights

-
The rise of digital authoritarianism banner advertisement

There will be four events, with the first on September 29th; all dates listed below

REGISTER

  • September 29th, 9-11am PST
  • October 1st, 9-11am PST
  • October 6th, 9-11am PST
  • October 9th, 9-11am PST

 

Click to View Program

 

The Rise of Digital Authoritarianism: China, AI and Human Rights

Day 1- September 29, 2020

Welcome Remarks

Larry Diamond | Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution and FSI, Principal Investigator, Global Digital Policy Incubator

Glenn Tiffert | Research Fellow, Hoover Institution

Jenny Wang | Strategic Advisor, Human Rights Foundation

Opening Remarks

Condoleezza Rice | Director, Hoover Institution, Former U.S. Secretary of State, Denning Professor in Global Business at the Graduate School of Business

 

Panel 1: How AI is powering China's Domestic Surveillance State - How is AI exacerbating surveillance risks and enabling digital authoritarianism? This session will examine both state-sponsored applications and Chinese commercial services.

Panelists

Bethany Allen-Ebrahimian | China Reporter, Axios

Paul Mozur | Asia Technology Correspondent, New York Times

Glenn Tiffert | Research Fellow, Hoover Institution

Xiao Qiang | UC Berkeley & Editor-in-Chief, China Digital Times

Moderator

Melissa Chan | Foreign Affairs Reporter, Deutsche Welle Asia

 

 

Day 2- October 1, 2020

Panel 2: The Ethics of Doing Business with China and Chinese Companies

Eric Schmidt | Former Executive Chairman and CEO, Google//Co-Founder, Schmidt Futures
Conversant: Eileen Donahoe, Executive Director of GDPI

 

Panel 2: The Ethics of Doing Business with China and Chinese Companies - What dynamics are at play in China's effort to establish market dominance for Chinese companies, both domestically and globally? What demands are placed on non-Chinese technology companies to participateWhat dynamics are at play in China's effort to establish market dominance for Chinese companies, both domestically and globally? What demands are placed on non-Chinese technology companies to participate in the Chinese marketplace? What framework should U.S.-based companies use to evaluate the risks and opportunities for collaboration and market entry in China? To what extent are Chinese companies (e.g..,TikTok) competing in Western markets required to comply with Chinese government instructions or demands for access to data?

Panelists

Mary Hui | Hong Kong-based Technology and Business Reporter, Quartz
 
Megha Rajagopalan | International Correspondent and Former China Bureau Chief, Buzzfeed News
 

Alex Stamos | Director, Stanford Internet Observatory & Former Chief Security Officer, Facebook

Moderator

Casey Newton | Silicon Valley Editor, The Verge

 

 

Day 3- October 6, 2020

Panel 3: China as an Emerging Global AI Superpower

Keynote & Conversation

Competing in the Superpower Marathon with China

Mike Brown | Director, Defense Innovation Unit

Conversant: Larry Diamond, Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution and FSI, Principal Investigator, Global Digital Policy Incubator

Panel 3: China as an Emerging Global AI Superpower- How should we think about China's growing influence in the realm of AI and the attendant geopolitical risks and implications? This session will explore China’s bid through Huawei to build and control the world's 5G networks, and what that implies for human rights and national sovereignty and security; China's export of surveillance technology to authoritarian regimes around the world; China's global partnerships to research and develop AI; and the problem of illicit technology transfer/theft.

Panelists

Steven Feldstein | Senior Fellow, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace 

Lindsay Gorman | Fellow for Emerging Technologies, Alliance for Securing Democracy, German Marshall Fund 

Maya Wang | China Senior Researcher, Human Rights Watch

Moderator

Dominic Ziegler | Senior Asia Correspondent and Banyan Columnist, The Economist

 

 

Day 4- October 9, 2020

Panel 4: How Democracies Should Respond to China’s Emergence as an AI Superpower

Keynote

Digital Social Innovation: Taiwan Can Help

Audrey Tang | Digital Minister, Taiwan

Panel 4: How Democracies Should Respond to China's Emergence as an AI Superpower- How should the rest of the world, and especially the world's democracies, react to China's bid to harness AI for ill as well as good? How do we strike the right balance between vigilance in defense of human rights and national security and xenophobic overreaction?

Panelists

Christopher Balding | Associate Professor, Fulbright University Vietnam

Anja Manuel | Co-Founder, Rice, Hadley, Gates & Manuel

Chris Meserole | Deputy Director of the Artificial Intelligence and Emerging Technology Initiative, Brookings Institution

Moderator

Larry Diamond | Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution and FSI, Principal Investigator, Global Digital Policy Incubator

 

 

Closing Keynote & Conversation

Strengthening Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence

Fei-Fei Li | Co-Director, Stanford Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence (HAI) Conversant: Eileen Donahoe, Executive Director of GDPi

Closing Remarks: Alex Gladstein & Eileen Donahoe

Seminars
Date Label
Subscribe to Security