If you believe the hype, artificial intelligence will soon take all our jobs, or solve all our problems, or destroy all boundaries between reality and lies, or help us live forever, or take over the world and exterminate humanity. That’s a pretty wide spectrum, and leaves a lot of people very confused about what exactly AI can and can’t do. In this episode, we’ll help you sort that out: For example, we’ll talk about why even superintelligent AI cannot simply replace humans for most of what we do, nor can it perfect or ruin our world unless we let it.

Arvind Narayanan studies the societal impact of digital technologies with a focus on how AI does and doesn’t work, and what it can and can’t do. He believes that if we set aside all the hype, and set the right guardrails around AI’s training and use, it has the potential to be a profoundly empowering and liberating technology. Narayanan joins EFF’s Cindy Cohn and Jason Kelley to discuss how we get to a world in which AI can improve aspects of our lives from education to transportation—if we make some system improvements first—and how AI will likely work in ways that we barely notice but that help us grow and thrive. 

In this episode you’ll learn about: 

• What it means to be a “techno-optimist” (and NOT the venture capitalist kind) 
• Why we can’t rely on predictive algorithms to make decisions in criminal justice, hiring, lending, and other crucial aspects of people’s lives 
• How large-scale, long-term, controlled studies are needed to determine whether a specific AI application actually lives up to its accuracy promises 
• Why “cheapfakes” tend to be more (or just as) effective than deepfakes in shoring up political support 
• How AI is and isn’t akin to the Industrial Revolution, the advent of electricity, and the development of the assembly line 

Arvind Narayanan is professor of computer science and director of the Center for Information Technology Policy at Princeton University. Along with Sayash Kapoor, he publishes the AI Snake Oil newsletter, followed by tens of thousands of researchers, policy makers, journalists, and AI enthusiasts; they also have authored “AI Snake Oil: What Artificial Intelligence Can Do, What It Can’t, and How to Tell the Difference” (2024, Princeton University Press). He has studied algorithmic amplification on social media as a visiting senior researcher at Columbia University's Knight First Amendment Institute; co-authored an online a textbook on fairness and machine learning; and led Princeton's Web Transparency and Accountability Project, uncovering how companies collect and use our personal information. 

Many of the internet’s thorniest problems can be attributed to the concentration of power in a few corporate hands: the surveillance capitalism that makes it profitable to invade our privacy, the lack of algorithmic transparency that turns artificial intelligence and other tech into impenetrable black boxes, the rent-seeking behavior that seeks to monopolize and mega-monetize an existing market instead of creating new products or markets, and much more. 

Kara Swisher has been documenting the internet’s titans for almost 30 years through a variety of media outlets and podcasts. She believes that with adequate regulation we can keep people safe online without stifling innovation, and we can have an internet that’s transparent and beneficial for all, not just a collection of fiefdoms run by a handful of homogenous oligarchs. 

In this episode you’ll learn about: 

• Why it’s so important that tech workers speak out about issues they want to improve and work to create companies that elevate best practices  
• Why completely unconstrained capitalism turns technology into weapons instead of tools 
• How antitrust legislation and enforcement can create a healthier online ecosystem 
• Why AI could either bring abundance for many or make the very rich even richer 
• The small online media outlets still doing groundbreaking independent reporting that challenges the tech oligarchy 

Kara Swisher is one of the world's foremost tech journalists and critics, and currently hosts two podcasts: On with Kara Swisher and Pivot, the latter co-hosted by New York University Professor Scott Galloway.  She's been covering the tech industry since the 1990s for outlets including the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, and the New York Times; she is an New York Magazine editor-at-large, a CNN contributor, and cofounder of the tech news sites Recode and All Things Digital. She also has authored several books, including “Burn Book” (Simon & Schuster, 2024) in which she documents the history of Silicon Valley and the tech billionaires who run it. 

Many people approach digital security training with furrowed brows, as an obstacle to overcome. But what if learning to keep your tech safe and secure was consistently playful and fun? People react better to learning, and retain more knowledge, when they're having a good time. It doesn’t mean the topic isn’t serious – it’s just about intentionally approaching a serious topic with joy. 

That’s how Helen Andromedon approaches her work as a digital security trainer in East Africa. She teaches human rights defenders how to protect themselves online, creating open and welcoming spaces for activists, journalists, and others at risk to ask hard questions and learn how to protect themselves against online threats. She joins EFF’s Cindy Cohn and Jason Kelley to discuss making digital security less complicated, more relevant, and more joyful to real users, and encouraging all women and girls to take online safety into their own hands so that they can feel fully present and invested in the digital world. 

In this episode you’ll learn about: 

• How the Trump Administration’s shuttering of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) has led to funding cuts for digital security programs in Africa and around the world, and why she’s still optimistic about the work 
• The importance of helping women feel safe and confident about using online platforms to create positive change in their communities and countries 
• Cultivating a mentorship model in digital security training and other training environments 
• Why diverse input creates training models that are accessible to a wider audience 
• How one size never fits all in digital security solutions, and how Dungeons and Dragons offers lessons to help people retain what they learn 

Helen Andromedon – a moniker she uses to protect her own security – is a digital security trainer in East Africa who helps human rights defenders learn how to protect themselves and their data online and on their devices. She played a key role in developing the Safe Sisters project, which is a digital security training program for women. She’s also a UX researcher and educator who has worked as a consultant for many organizations across Africa, including the Association for Progressive Communications and the African Women’s Development Fund. 

The cryptography that protects our privacy and security online relies on the fact that even the strongest computers will take essentially forever to do certain tasks, like factoring prime numbers and finding discrete logarithms which are important for RSA encryption, Diffie-Hellman key exchanges, and elliptic curve encryption. But what happens when those problems – and the cryptography they underpin – are no longer infeasible for computers to solve? Will our online defenses collapse? 

Not if Deirdre Connolly can help it. As a cutting-edge thinker in post-quantum cryptography, Connolly is making sure that the next giant leap forward in computing – quantum machines that use principles of subatomic mechanics to ignore some constraints of classical mathematics and solve complex problems much faster – don’t reduce our digital walls to rubble. Connolly joins EFF’s Cindy Cohn and Jason Kelley to discuss not only how post-quantum cryptography can shore up those existing walls but also help us find entirely new methods of protecting our information. 

In this episode you’ll learn about: 

• Why we’re not yet sure exactly what quantum computing can do yet, and that’s exactly why we need to think about post-quantum cryptography now 
• What a “Harvest Now, Decrypt Later” attack is, and what’s happening today to defend against it
• How cryptographic collaboration, competition, and community are key to exploring a variety of paths to post-quantum resilience
• Why preparing for post-quantum cryptography is and isn’t like fixing the Y2K bug
• How the best impact that end users can hope for from post-quantum cryptography is no visible impact at all
• Don’t worry—you won’t have to know, or learn, any math for this episode!  

Deidre Connolly is a research and applied cryptographer at Sandbox AQ with particular expertise in post quantum encryption. She also co-hosts the “Security Cryptography Whatever” podcast about modern computer security and cryptography, with a focus on engineering and real-world experiences. Earlier, she was an engineer at the Zcash Foundation – a nonprofit that builds financial privacy infrastructure for the public good – as well as at Brightcove, Akamai, and HubSpot. 

Public-interest journalism speaks truth to power, so protecting press freedom is part of protecting democracy. But what does it take to digitally secure journalists’ work in an environment where critics, hackers, oppressive regimes, and others seem to have the free press in their crosshairs? 

That’s what Harlo Holmes focuses on as Freedom of the Press Foundation’s digital security director. Her team provides training, consulting, security audits, and other support to newsrooms, independent journalists, freelancers, documentary filmmakers – anyone who is making independent journalism in the public interest – so that they can do their jobs more safely and securely. Holmes joins EFF’s Cindy Cohn and Jason Kelley to discuss the tools and techniques that help journalists protect themselves and their sources while keeping the world informed.  

In this episode you’ll learn about: 

• The importance of protecting online anonymity on an ever-increasingly “data-greedy” internet. 
• How digital security nihilism in the United States compares with regions of the world where oppressive and repressive governance are more common 
• Why compartmentalization can be a simple, easy approach to digital security 
• The need for middleware to provide encryption and other protections that shield sources’ anonymity and journalists’ work product when using corporate data platforms 
• How podcasters, YouTubers, and TikTokers fit into the broad sweep of media history, and need digital protections as well 

Harlo Holmes is the chief information security officer and director of digital security at Freedom of the Press Foundation. She strives to help individual journalists in various media organizations become confident and effective in securing their communications within their newsrooms, with their sources, and with the public at large. She is a media scholar, software programmer, and activist. Holmes was a regular contributor to the open-source mobile security collective Guardian Project, where she spearheaded the media metadata verification initiative currently empowering ProofMode, Save by OpenArchive, eyeWitness to Atrocities, and others. 

Many in Silicon Valley, and in U.S. business at large, seem to believe innovation springs only from competition, a race to build the next big thing first, cheaper, better, best. But what if collaboration and community breeds innovation just as well as adversarial competition?  

Isabela Fernandes believes free, open-source software has helped build the internet, and will be key to improving it for all. As executive director of the Tor Project – the nonprofit behind the decentralized, onion-routing network providing crucial online anonymity to activists and dissidents around the world – she has fought tirelessly for everyone to have private access to an uncensored internet, and Tor has become one of the world's strongest tools for privacy and freedom online.  

Fernandes joins EFF’s Cindy Cohn and Jason Kelley to discuss the importance of not just accepting technology as it’s given to us, but collaboratively breaking it, tinkering with it, and rebuilding it together until it becomes the technology that we really need to make our world a better place. 

In this episode you’ll learn about: 

• How the Tor network protects the anonymity of internet users around the world, and why that’s so important 
• Why online privacy is NOT only for “people who have something to hide” 
• The importance of making more websites friendly and accessible to Tor and similar systems 
• How Tor can actually benefit law enforcement  
• How free, open-source software can power economic booms 

Isabela Fernandes has been executive director of the Tor Project since 2018; she had been a project manager there since 2015.  She also has served since 2023 as a board member of both European Digital Rights – an association of civil and human rights organizations aimed at building a people-centered, democratic society – and The Engine Room, a nonprofit that supports social justice movements to use technology and data in safe, responsible and strategic ways, while actively mitigating the vulnerabilities created by digital systems. Earlier, Fernandes worked as a product manager for Twitter; Latin America project manager for North by South, which offered open-source technology integration to companies using  expertise of Latin American free software specialists; as a project manager for Brazil’s President, overseeing migration of the IT department to free software; and as a technical advisor to Brazil’s Ministry of Communications, creating and implementing new features and free-software tools for the National Digital Inclusion Program serving 3,500 communities. She’s a former member of the board of the Calyx Institute, an education and research organization devoted to studying, testing and developing and implementing privacy technology and tools to promote free speech, free expression, civic engagement and privacy rights on the internet and in the mobile telephone industry. And she was a cofounder and longtime volunteer with Indymedia Brazil, an independent journalism collective. 

There’s a weird belief out there that tech critics hate technology. But do movie critics hate movies? Do food critics hate food? No! The most effective, insightful critics do what they do because they love something so deeply that they want to see it made even better. The most effective tech critics have had transformative, positive online experiences, and now unflinchingly call out the surveilled, commodified, enshittified landscape that exists today because they know there has been – and still can be – something better.

That’s what drives Molly White’s work. Her criticism of the cryptocurrency and technology industries stems from her conviction that technology should serve human needs rather than mere profits. Whether it’s blockchain or artificial intelligence, she’s interested in making sure the “next big thing” lives up to its hype, and more importantly, to the ideals of participation and democratization that she experienced. She joins EFF’s Cindy Cohn and Jason Kelley to discuss working toward a human-centered internet that gives everyone a sense of control and interaction – open to all in the way that Wikipedia was (and still is) for her and so many others: not just as a static knowledge resource, but as something in which we can all participate.

In this episode you’ll learn about:

• Why blockchain technology has built-in incentives for grift and speculation that overwhelm most of its positive uses
• How protecting open-source developers from legal overreach, including in the blockchain world, remains critical
• The vast difference between decentralization of power and decentralization of compute
• How Neopets and Wikipedia represent core internet values of community, collaboration, and creativity
• Why Wikipedia has been resilient against some of the rhetorical attacks that have bogged down media outlets, but remains vulnerable to certain economic and political pressures
• How the Fediverse and other decentralization and interoperability mechanisms provide hope for the kind of creative independence, self-expression, and social interactivity that everyone deserves  

Molly White is a researcher, software engineer, and writer who focuses on the cryptocurrency industry, blockchains, web3, and other tech in her independent publication, Citation Needed. She also runs the websites Web3 is Going Just Great, where she highlights examples of how cryptocurrencies, web3 projects, and the industry surrounding them are failing to live up to their promises, and Follow the Crypto, where she tracks cryptocurrency industry spending in U.S. elections. She has volunteered for more than 15 years with Wikipedia, where she serves as an administrator (under the name GorillaWarfare) and functionary, and previously served three terms on the Arbitration Committee. She’s regularly quoted or bylined in news media, speaks at major conferences including South by Southwest and Web Summit; guest lectures at universities including Harvard, MIT, and Stanford; and advises policymakers and regulators around the world.

We all leave digital trails as we navigate the internet – records of what we searched for, what we bought, who we talked to, where we went or want to go in the real world – and those trails usually are owned by the big corporations behind the platforms we use. But what if we valued our digital autonomy the way that we do our bodily autonomy? What if we reclaimed the right to go, read, see, do and be what we wish online as we try to do offline? Moreover, what if we saw digital autonomy and bodily autonomy as two sides of the same coin – inseparable?

Kate Bertash wants that digital autonomy for all of us, and she pursues it in many different ways – from teaching abortion providers and activists how to protect themselves online, to helping people stymie the myriad surveillance technologies that watch and follow us in our communities. She joins EFF’s Cindy Cohn and Jason Kelley to discuss how creativity and community can align to center people in the digital world and make us freer both online and offline.

In this episode you’ll learn about:

• Why it’s important for local communities to collaboratively discuss and decide whether and how much they want to be surveilled
• How the digital era has blurred the bright line between public and private spaces
• Why we can’t surveil ourselves to safety
• How DefCon – America's biggest hacker conference – embodies the ideal that we don’t have to simply accept technology as it’s given to us, but instead can break, tinker with, and rebuild it to meet our needs
• Why building community helps us move beyond hopelessness to build and disseminate technology that helps protects everyone’s privacy  

Kate Bertash works at the intersection of tech, privacy, art, and organizing. She directs the Digital Defense Fund, launched in 2017 to meet the abortion rights and bodily autonomy movements’ increased need for security and technology resources after the 2016 election. This multidisciplinary team of organizers, engineers, designers, abortion fund and practical support volunteers provides digital security evaluations, conducts staff training, maintains a library of go-to resources on reproductive justice and digital privacy, and builds software for abortion access, bodily autonomy, and pro-democracy organizations. Bertash also engages in various multidisciplinary civic tech projects as a project manager, volunteer, activist, and artist; she’s especially interested in ways that artistic methods can interrogate use of AI-driven computer vision, other analytical technologies in surveillance, and related intersections with our civil rights.

Now more than ever, we need to build, reinforce, and protect the tools and technology that support our freedom. EFF’s How to Fix the Internet returns with another season full of forward-looking and hopeful conversations with the smartest and most creative leaders, activists, technologists, policy makers, and thinkers around. People who are working to create a better internet – and world – for all of us.

Co-hosts Executive Director Cindy Cohn and Activism Director Jason Kelley will speak with people like journalist Molly White, reproductive rights activist Kate Bertash, press freedom advocate Harlo Holmes, the Tor Project’s Isabela Fernandes and computer scientist and AI skeptic Arvind Narayanan, among many others.

EFF’s “How to Fix the Internet” podcast is a nominee in the Webby Awards 29th Annual People's Voice competition – and we need your support to bring the trophy home! Voting ends on April 17, so if you like what we do here by trying to envision a better digital future—please take a moment to go to eff.org/webby to cast your vote.